M 


'!>> 


ADDRESS 


BEFORE    THK 


§iatiottal  '^mmtion  ot  W0OI  Sttanufcuturi^vjsi, 


THE   FIKS'J'   ANNUAL   MEETING  IN   PHILADELPHIA, 


Sept.  «,  1865. 


By     JOHN     L.    HAYES, 


8ECKETARY. 


WITH   SECRETARY'S   REPORT   AND    TABLES. 


CAMBRIDGE  : 

PRESS   OF  JOHN  WILSON  AND   SONS. 
1865. 


ADDRESS 


BEFORE    THE 


§[ati(JttaI  ^mmtm  of  Wool  ^UmUtimmf 


THE  FIRST  ANNUAL  MEETING  IN  PHILADELPHIA, 


Sept.  6,  1865. 


By     JOHN     L.    HAYES, 


SECRETARY. 


WITH  SECRETARTS  REPORT  AND    TABLES. 


CAMBRIDGE : 

PRESS  OF  JOHN  WILSON  AND   SONS. 

18C5. 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/addressbeforenatOOhayeiala 


ADDRESS. 


The  occasion  of  the  first  annual  meeting  of  the  "  National 
Association  of  Wool  Manufacturers  "  would  seem  to  demand 
from  your  Secretary  something  more  than  a  meagre  statement 
of  transactions  of  tlie  Association  necessarily  limited  by  the 
brief  period  since  its  organization,  and  has  suggested,  as 
the  most  suitable  subject  for  an  address  which  shall  have  a 
wider  scope  than  a  mere  official  report,  the  consideration  of 
the  national  importance  of  the  wool  manufacture  and  the 
means  of  developing  it. 

The  principal  articles  of  the  wealth  of  a  nation  are  the 
yearly  products  of  those  industries  which  supply  food  and 
clothing,  and  the  instruments  by  which  they  are  produced 
and  diffused.  The  distribution  of  these  products  constitutes 
the  commerce  of  the  world.  Of  the  four  branches  of  textile 
industry  which  clothe  mankind,  the  one  to  whicli  we  are 
devoted  is  the  most  ancient,  the  most  important  to  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  temperate  regions,  and,  therefore,  to  the  most 
civilized  portions  of  mankind,  and  at  present  the  second  iu 
commercial  importance.  We  cannot  fail  to  benefit  ourselves 
by  impressing  upon  our  own  minds  even  familiar  facts  and 
considerations  which  tend  to  exalt  our  industry,  and  stimulate 
us  to  advance  and  ennoble  it ;  and  it  is  the  highest  duty  to 
our  cause  to  enlighten  the  public  mind  as  to  the  influence 
which  this  industry  has  had  and  may  have  in  its  future  possi- 
ble development,  in  promoting  the  wealth  of  the  country  and 


comfort  of  the  people,  in  identifying  the  interests  of  distant 
States,  in  sustaining  the  public  credit,  and  securing  a  real 
national  independence. 

Among  the  well-ordered  adaptations  of  nature  for  the  well- 
being  of  the  human  race,  one  of  the  most  beneficent  is  that 
which  has  supplied  the  temperate  regions  with  an  animal 
fitted  to  produce  at  the  same  time  food  and  the  most  essential 
clothing  of  its  inhabitants,  and  one  whose  culture  is  a  most 
valuable  accessory  to  general  agriculture.  So  early  did  man 
avail  himself  of  this  gift,  that  we  find  sheep  mentioned  in  the 
most  ancient  writings,  in  the  first  chapters  of  Genesis,  in 
the  Persian  Zend  Avesta,  in  the  Indian  Vedas,  and  in  the 
Chinese  Chou-king,  and  represented  on  the  monuments  of 
Egypt.  According  to  Geoffroy  Saint-Hilaire,  the  highest  au- 
thority on  the  origin  of  species,  the  specific  source  of  our 
domestic  sheep  is  unknown.  All  that  is  certain  is,  that  the 
present  races  originated  in  the  East ;  the  primitive  names, 
Bock  and  Bovc,  found  in  the  most  ancient  Asiatic  languages, 
being  preserved  in  our  term  Bvck* 

This  species  is  endowed  with  a  plasticity,  so  to  speak,  so 
remarkable,  that  it  is  more  susceptible  of  modification  than 
any  other  animal,  except  the  dog,t  so  that  "  the  breeder,"  as 
Lord  Somerville  says,  "  may  chalk  out  upon  a  wall  a  form 
perfect  in  itself,  and  then  give  it  existence."  %  Hence  peculi- 
arities are  developed  in  the  coverings  of  different  races  pro- 
duced by  man,  which  make  that  distinctness  and  variety  of 
fabric  wliich  characterize  the  wool  manufacture ;  and  thus  we 
have  the  coarse  Cordova  and  Donskoi  wools  for  our  carpets ; 
the  noble  electoral  wools  of  Saxony  and  Silesia  for  our  broad- 
cloths ;  the  strong  middle  wools  of  the  Southdown  and  our 


*  Bulletin  de  la  Soci^t^  Imperiale  Zoologique  d'Acclimatation,  t.  6,  p.  502. 
t  Cuvier.    Animal  Kingdom,  translated  by  H.  McMurtrie.    New  York,  1831.  Vol.  i. 
p.  199. 

t  Bischoflf  ou  Wool,  "Woollens,  and  Sheep.    London,  1842.    p.  380. 


native  sheep  for  blankets ;  the  soft,  long,  and  finer  merino 
wools  of  France,  Vermont,  and  Michigan,  for  thibets,  delaines, 
and  shawls ;  the  longer  and  coarser  combing  wools  of  tlie 
Cotswold  and  Leicester  races  for  worsteds  in  their  thousand 
applications ;  the  very  long  and  bright-haired  lustre  wools  of 
Lincolnshire  for  alpaca  fabrics ;  and,  lastly,  the  precious  silky 
Mauchamp  wool,  the  recent  triumph  of  French  agronomic 
skill,  rivalling  even  the  Cashmere,  for  shawls,  and  the  Angora, 
for  Utrecht  velvets.* 

The  fibre  of  wool,  rendered  more  perfect  than  any  other  by 
the  more  complete  chemical  elaborations  and  assimilations  of 
the  animal  economy,  has  the  most  highly  developed  organic 
structure.  While  the  specific  gravity  of  cotton  is  1-47,  of 
linen  1-50,  and  of  silk  1-30,  the  specific  gravity  of  wool  is  but 
l'26.f  It  is,  therefore,  of  all  fibrous  substances  the  best  non- 
conductor, and  its  tissues  the  lightest  and  warmest  and  most 
healthful.  The  perfection  of  the  fibre  is  shown  in  its  inde- 
structibleness  and  durability.  Cotton  and  flax  may  be  ulti- 
mately reduced  to  mere  woody  fibre.  Wool  is  almost  incapable 
of  mechanical  destruction.  The  existence  of  "  shoddy,"  the 
term  of  reproach  to  the  woollen  manufacturers,  is  the  strongest 
proof  of  the  excellence  and  indestructibility  of  its  original 
fibre.  Unlike  silk,  the  product  of  an  inferior  animal  organiza- 
tion, which  is  straight  and  entirely  structureless,  the  fibre  of 
wool  is  crisped  or  spirally  curled,  and  is  made  up  of  cells 
of  different  kinds,  —  the  interior  forming  the  pith,  and  the  ex- 
terior consisting  of  serrated  rings  imbricated  over  each  other, 
having  under  the  microscope  the  appearance  of  a  series  of 
thimbles  with  uneven  edges  inserted  into  each  other ;  these  ser- 
ratures,  as  well  as  the  spiral  curls,  being  more  or  less  distinct 
according  to  the  fineness  of  the  fibre.  J     We  have  here  the 

*  See  note  on  p.  55. 

t  Uro's  Philosophy  of  Manufactures,  p.  81,  el  teq. 

X  Youatt  on  Sheep,  p.  94.  Argument  by  George  Harding  in  Supreme  Court  of 
United  States.  Burr  vs.  Duryee  et  ah.  "  Hat  Body  Case,"  p.  113.  Report  of  Flax  and 
Hemp  Commission,  p.  68. 


6 


cause  of  the  invaluable  quality  of  felting,  to  which  we  owe 
our  hats  and  broadcloths.  Flax  and  cotton  composed  of 
mere  woody  fibre  are  opaque  and  dull  in  aspect ;  woolly  fibre, 
when  freed  from  the  peculiar  soapy  oil  or  yolk  which  nour- 
ishes and  protects  its  growth,  has  a  natural  polish  which 
protects  it  from  soiling,  and  in  some  varieties  gives  a  positively 
lustrous  beauty  to  its  fabrics;  the  vegetable  fibres  receive 
with  difficulty  permanent  dyes,  and  sometimes  curiously  exhibit 
their  refractory  nature  in  contrast  with  wool.  The  fibres,  acci- 
dentally detached  from  cotton  or  hempen  strings,  with  which 
fleeces  are  sometimes  bound,  when  incorporated  with  the  wool- 
len fabric,  refuse  the  dye,  and  often  ruin  whole  products  of  the 
loom.  On  the  other  hand,  all  animal  fibres  have  ready  affini- 
ties with  the  chemical  agents  of  the  dyer.  Wool  especially, 
from  its  beautiful  whiteness,  itself  the  result  of  the  ameliora- 
tion of  the  original  black  sheep,  is  unrivalled  in  its  facility  for 
receiving,  and  power  of  permanently  retaining,  color,  as  in 
the  famous  woollen  Gobelin  tapestries,*  where  over  a  thousand 
distinctly  defined  tones  and  hues  are  given  to  fabrics  destined 
to  be  indestructible  as  works  of  art. 

Such  are  the  qualities  of  fibre  which  have  led  every  indus- 
trious nation  to  the  culture  of  flocks  as  the  first  necessity  of 
its  people  ;  which  have  caused,  in  every  manufacturing  nation, 
the  demand  to  constantly  exceed  the  supply  ;  which  have  trans- 
planted colonies  from  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  to  Australia, 
and  have  carried  tlie  shepherd-emigrant  to  the  steppes  of  Rus- 
sia and  the  plains  of  La  Plata;!  and  which  have  brought  the 
present  production  to  such  enormous  figures  as  are  given  by 
recent  German  estimates,  J  giving  to  Great  Britain  an  annual 
production    of    260,000,000   pounds   of  wool ;    to   Germany, 


*  Chevreiul  on  Colors.  Translated  from  the  French  by  John  Spanton.  London, 
1858.    p.  113. 

t  See  Southey  on  Colonial  Wools,  passim. 

X  United-States  Economist  of  June  10, 1865,  which  quotes  from  a  writer  in  the 
Year-book  of  German  Cattle  Breeders. 


200,000,000;  France,  123,000,000;  Spain,  Italy,  and  Portugal, 
119,000,000 ;  European  Russia,  125,000,000 ;  making,  in  all 
Europe,  827,000,000 ;  in  Australia,  South  America,  and  South 
Africa,  157,000,000 ;  the  United  States,  95,000,000  ;  the  Brit- 
ish North-American  Provinces,  12,000,000  ;  Asia,  at  a  very 
general  estimate,  470,000,000  ;  Northern  Africa,  49,000,000  : 
the  aggregate  production  of  wool  in  the  whole  globe  amount- 
ing, by  these  estimates,  to  1,610,000,000,  or  a  pound  and  a 
quarter  to  each  inhabitant,  reckoned  at  twelve  hundred  and 
eighty-five  million  people.* 

In  tracing  the  history  of  the  woollen  manufacture,  we  find 
that  it  had  already  attained  considerable  perfection  with  the 
Romans,  who  employed  this  material  in  almost  all  their  gar- 
ments,! ^^d  with  whom  sheep  were  so  abundant  that  a  single 
patrician  bequeathed,  by  will,  two  hundred  thousand  to  Augus- 
tus4    The  prices  of  the  finer  fabrics,  however,  were  enormous. 


*  Bulletin  of  American  Geogrnphical  Society,  1865,  p.  153.  Hon.  Fred.  A. 
Conkling,  in  a  paper  on  the  Production  and  Consumption  of  Cotton,  furnishes  a  table, 
prepared  by  Prof.  A.  J.  Schem,  in  which  the  populations  of  all  the  countries  on  the 
globe  using  cotton  exclusively  are  set  do\^ii  at  695,596,483.  The  populations  which 
use  cotton  only  partially  (and,  consequently,  use  more  or  less  wool)  are  set  down  at 
519,656,253. 

t  "  All  the  garments  of  both  sexes  were  for  many  centuries  made  of  wool  exclu- 
sively; and,  although  silk  and  flax  were  introduced  under  the  empire,  they  were  never 
adopted  by  any  large  portion  of  the  community."  —  Bamsay's  Elementary  Manual  of 
Roman  Antiquities.     London,  1860.    p.  238. 

t  Statistique  des  Peuples  de  Antiquit(5,  par  M.  Moreau  de  Jonnes,  t.  ii.  p.  464. 
The  invaluable  race  of  merino  sheep  is  probably  an  inheritance  of  Roman  civilization. 
The  race  most  prized  by  the  Romans  was  called  the  Tarrentine,  from  Tarrentum,  a  town 
settled  by  a  Greek  colony.  They  were  also  called  Greek  sheep.  Their  wool  was  of  ex- 
ceeding fineness ;  and  they  were  protected  by  coverings  of  skins,  and  were  also  carefully 
housed,  and  often  combed,  and  bathed  with  oil  and  wine.  Hence  they  were  very  deli- 
cate. Columella,  the  most  eminent  agricultural  writer  of  the  Romans,  who  lived  in  the 
century  before  the  Christian  era,  relates  {De  Re  Rustica,  lib.  vii.  chap.  2)  that  his 
paternal  uncle,  M.  Columella,  "  a  man  of  keen  genius  and  an  illustrious  agriculturalist," 
transported  from  Cadiz  to  his  farm-lands,  which  were  in  Boetica,  comprehending  a  part 
of  the  present  province  of  Estramadura,  some  wild  rams  of  admirable  whiteness  brought 
from  Africa,  and  crossed  them  with  the  covered  or  Tarrentine  ewes.  Their  offspring, 
which  had  the  paternal  whiteness,  being  put  to  Tarrentine  ewes,  produced  rams  with  a  finer 
fleece.  The  progeny  of  these  again  retained  the  softness  of  the  dam  and  the  whiteness 
of  the  sire  and  grandsire  (matemam  mollitiem,  patemum  et  avitum  colorem).  Other  agri- 
culturalists undoubtedly  imitated  Columella,  and  a  stronger  constitution  was  thus  imparted 


8 


Tlie  Roman  purple  worn  by  the  senators  was  made  from  wools 
of  Italy,  which,  according  to  Pliny,  were  worth  four  dollars 
per  pound  of  twelve  ounces,*  and  which,  of  the  same  weight, 
were  worth  one  hundred  and  sixty  dollars,  when  colored 
with  tlie  Tyrian  dye.f  It  is  not  strange,  then,  that  Horace 
should  boast  of  a  gift  to  his  mistress  of  fleeces  twice  dyed  with 
the  Tyrian  murex.J  The  world  has  regretted,  for  many  cen- 
turies, the  loss  of  this  imperial  dye ;  but  within  the  last  ten 
years,  or  no  later  than  1856,  chemistry  has  produced  from 
aniline,  a  product  of  worthless  coal  tar,  a  purple  tint,  resist- 
ing light,  alkalis,  and  acids,  §  and  rivalling,  upon  the  light 
worsted  zephyrs  of  our  simple  maidens,  the  hue  of  the  patrician 
mantle. 

The  woollen  industry  disappeared  with  the  incursions  of  the 
barbarians  and  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  or  languished 


to  the  fine-fleeced  but  delicate  sheep  of  ancient  Italy.  That  this  improvement  was  com- 
menced in  ancient  Spain  is  further  established  by  the  testimony  of  Strabo,  who  says,  in 
his  account  of  the  geography  of  that  country  (lib.  iii.  chap.  2),  that  in  his  time,  that  of 
the  Emperor  Tiberius,  wool  of  great  fineness  and  beauty  was  exported  fi-om  Truditania, 
a  part  of  Boetica ;  and  that  rams  were  sold  in  that  province  for  improving  the  breed  for  a 
talent  each,  or  about  one  thousand  dollars.  When  tlie  Roman  Empire  was  overrun  by 
the  barbarians,  the  Tarrentiue  stock  of  Italy,  being  very  tender,  became  extinct ;  but  the 
improved  stock  of  Boetica,  living  in  the' mountains,  survived  and  perpetuated  by  tlio 
Moors,  who,  skilled  in  the  textile  arts,  could  appreciate  its  value,  still  exists  as  the 
merinos  of  Spain.  If  this  view  is  correct,  the  merino  race  is  the  most  important  sur- 
viving relic  of  the  material  civilization  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans.  I  shall  be  excused 
for  these  remarks,  which  may  be  of  little  practical  benefit,  by  those  who  appreciate  the 
sentiment  of  Niebuhr,  the  great  historian  of  Rome,  "  that  he  who  calls  what  has  vanished 
back  into  being,  enjoys  a  bliss  like  that  of  creating." 

*  Pliny's  Natural  History  (lib.  viii.  chap.  73):  Centennos  nummos,  or  a  hun- 
dred sesterces,  a  sesterce  of  the  value  of  four  cents.  —  Allen's  Classical  Hand-book, 
p.  110. 

t  Pliny's  Natural  History  (lib.  ix.  chap.  63):  Denarits  mille,  or  a  thousand 
denarii,  a  denanm  of  the  value  of  sixteen  cents.  —  Allen's  Classical  Hand-book, 
p.  110. 

J  Muricibus  Tyriis  iteratie  vellera  lanae,  epod,  12-21. 

§  "  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  introduction  of  this  one  color  (the  aniline 
purple)  has  been  a  greater  boon  to  the  dyer  than  all  the  other  inventions  of  the  last  ten 
years  put  together.  Not  only  is  the  hue  yielded  by  the  coal  tar  (purple)  of  a  different 
and  better  kind  than  any  before  known:  it  is  likewise  so  fast,  that  it  may,  with  indigo 
blue  and  a  few  other  colors,  be  considered  as  permanent." — International  Exhibition  of 
1862.    Reports  of  Juries,  Class  21. 


only  in  domestic  manufacture,  or  in  the  abbieys  where  the 
monks  of  the  dark  ages  still  pursued  the  arts  necessary  for 
their  own  comfort.  This  decline  in  the  arts  continued  until 
the  time  of  the  Crusades,  which  effected  a  complete  revolution 
in  industry  and  commerce.  The  Crusaders*  found  in  Asia  the 
scattered  fragments  of  the  sciences  and  arts,  and  among  others, 
the  processes  for  making  those  rich  fabrics  which  had  formed 
the  most  luxurious  vestments  and  furniture  of  the  Romans.f 
The  States  of  Italy  were  the  first  which  availed  themselves  of 
these  discoveries,  making  the  mechanical  arts  auxiliary  to  the 
commerce  which  they  had  revived  on  the  ancient  course  of 
navigation  to  the  East.  In  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  cen- 
turies, Florence,  Venice,  Pisa,  and  Genoa,  had  arrived  at  great 
perfection  in  manufactures.  In  those  States  we  have  the  first 
brilliant  illustration  of  the  influence  of  the  industrial  arts 
upon  the  prosperity  of  the  State.  Florence  owed  her  splendor 
to  the  woollen  manufacture  with  which  she  supplied  the  world.  J 
Machiavelli  alludes  to  the  sound  of  the  moving  shuttle  which 
resounded  in  all  her  streets,  and  he  mournfully  contrasts  the 
former  cheerful  hum  of  a  busy  industry  with  the  stillness  pre- 
vailing, after  the  loss  of  this  manufacture,  through  the  plague 
and  change  of  traffic. §  It  is  no  little  boast  for  our  indus- 
try that  it  was  the  source  of  the  commerce  and  wealth  whose 
magnificent  fruits  still  survive  in  the  wonders  of  Florentine 
art. 

*  Mill's  History  of  the  Crusades,  vol.  ii.  p.  346. 

t  Metellus  Scipio,  in  the  accusation  which  he  brought  against  Cato,  stated  that 
even  in  his  time  Babylonian  (Asiatic)  coverings  for  couches  were  selling  for  800,000 
sesterces,  or  $128,000.  In  the  time  of  Nero,  they  had  risen  to  four  million  sesterces, 
$640,000.  —  Pliny's  Natural  History,  lib.  viii.  chap.  73. 

Some  of  the  most  ancient  Asiatic  forms  survive  unchanged  in  modern  woollen 
fabrics,  such  as  the  palm  patten. s  of  shawls.  Specimens  of  Cashmere  shawls,  of  the 
kind  called  Espouline  in  France,  collected,  in  the  year  835,  by  Theodolphus,  Bishop  of 
Orleans,  are  preserved  in  the  archives  of  the  Bishopric  du  Puy  de  Velay.  —  Pastoral 
Life  and  Maimfactures  of  the  Ancients.     New  York,  1845.    p.  94. 

\  Millar's  Historical  Views  of  the  English  Government,  vol.  ii.  p.  370.  James's  His- 
tory of  the  Worsted  Manufacture,  p.  20. 

§  Quarterly  Review,  January,  1821,  p.  296. 

2 


10 


The  Netherlands,  already  advanced,  as  early  as  the  tenth 
century,  in  the  manufacture  of  linen,  which  their  soil  produced 
of  admirable  quality,  readily  appropriated  from  the  Italians 
the  arts  of  manufacturing  wool.  Favored  by  their  internal 
water-carriage,  which  gave  them  supplies  of  material,  and  by 
the  middle  station  of  their  ports  in  the  foreign  navigation  of 
the  maritime  nations,  they  had  outlets  for  their  commodities 
in  all  parts  of  Europe.  They  supplied  themselves  with  wool 
from  England,  to  the  vast  amount  of  forty-five  million  pounds 
in  some  years,  and  were  aided,  at  one  period,  in  obtaining  wool 
from  Spain  by  the  union  of  the  sovereignties  of  Spain  and  the 
Netherlands  under  Charles  V.  Flanders  continued  for  a  long 
period  to  supply  Europe  with  all  the  woollen  cloths  and  stuffs 
demanded  by  luxury  or  taste,  and  was  the  veritable  centre 
from  which  the  arts  of  fabricating  woollens  spread  in  time  to 
all  the  other  industrious  nations  of  Christendom.*  Flemish 
wealth,  derived  mainly  from  this  industry,  was  the  envy  of  all 
Europe.  Letters  and  the  fine  arts  were  encouraged  and  flour- 
ished, and  the  works  of  the  Flemish,  no  less  than  the  Floren- 
tine painters,  survive  to  illustrate  the  great  truth  that  the  true 
source  of  the  highest  culture  of  a  nation,  and  of  its  only 
immortal  monuments,  is  its  industrial  prosperity. 

This  sketch  of  the  industry  of  Rome,  Italy,  and  Flanders,  is 
but  introductory  to  that  of  the  great  nation  from  which  we 
derive  our  language,  institutions,  and  arts,  and  which,  com- 
manding a  foreign  trade  of  not  less  than  twenty-one  hundred 
millions  of  dollars,  and  exporting  annually  her  manufactures  to 
the  amount  of  six  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  dollars,!  must 
be  first  looked  to  for  instruction  and  example  by  all  nations 
who  seek  their  own  industrial  development.  We  find  that  our 
own  industry  has  played  no  mean  part  in  securing  England's 
commercial  prosperity. 

*  Hume's  History  of  England,  vol.  ii.  p.  398.  Motley's  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Dutch 
Bepublic,  p.  36.    Millar,  supr.  cit. 

t  The  Tariflf  Question,  by  Erastus  B.  Bigelow,  p.  3. 


11 


The  climate  of  England  is  wonderfully  fitted  for  raising  cer- 
tain breeds  of  sheep,  and  it  is  probable  that  our  British  ances- 
tors were  employed  in  the  domestic  production  of  woollen 
goods  from  the  earliest  period  that  they  had  emerged  into  civi- 
lization. Names  derived  from  textile  occupations  must  have 
been  early  incorporated  among  English  sirnames.  The  name 
rendered  so  familiar  by  its  quaint  calligraphy  upon  our  Trea- 
sury notes,  and  that  of  New-England's  great  orator,  are  inherit- 
ed from  the  ancient  spinners  and  websters,  or  weavers  of  Eng- 
land. Nevertheless,  the  English  produced  only  common  stuffs, 
and  exported,  in  the  eleventh  century,  more  than  half  their 
wools  to  the  Netherlands.  In  the  early  part  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  the  English  are  spoken  of  as  "  only  shepherds  and 
wool  merchants,"  and  as  "  depending  on  the  Netherlands,  who 
were  the  only  wool-weavers  in  Europe.*  In  the  latter  part  of 
the  fourteenth  century,  the  manufacture  of  wool  received  its 
first  impulse  in  England,  and  became  firmly  transplanted  upon 
her  soil  by  the  protecting  influence  of  Edward  III.,  who  thus 
added  to  his  title  of  hero  of  Cressy,  the  prouder  name  of 
father  of  English  commerce.  The  eyes  of  this  enlightened 
sovereign  were  opened  to  one  of  those  simple  facts  which  Eng- 
land now  expects  to  be  invisible  to  all  other  nations.  He  saw, 
in  the  quaint  words  of  the  author  of  the  "  Golden  Fleece," 
—  "  that  the  subjects  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  receiving  the 
English  wool  at  sixpence  a  pound,  returned  it,  through  the  man- 
ufacture of  that  industrious  people,  in  cloths  at  ten  shillings, 
to  the  great  enriching  of  that  State,  botli  in  revenue  to  their 
sovereign  and  employment  to  their  subjects.  He  at  once 
proposed  how  to  enrich  his  people,  and  to  people  his  new  con- 
quered dominions ;  and  both  these  he  designed  to  effect  by 
means  of  his  English  commodity,  wool."  f    The  first  great  step 


*  The  Pensionary  De  Witt,  quoted  by  Youatt.    Sheep,  their  Breeds,  &c.,  by  Wil- 
liam Youatt,  p.  205. 

t  Smith's  Memoirs  of  Wool,  vol.  i.  p.  139.    Youatt,  p.  205. 


12 


of  Edward  was  to  attract  to  England  a  large  number  of  Flem- 
ish families  initiated  in  the  arts  of  fabricating  woollen  goods ; 
and  it  is  said  that "  he  not  only  royally  performed  his  promises 
to  them,  but  he  likewise  invested  them  with  privileges  and 
immunities  beyond  those  of  his  native  subjects."  Seventy 
families  were  brought  over  in  the  first  year.  England  became 
speedily  enriched  by  "  this  treasury  of  foreigners,"  as  Fuller 
styles  them  in  his  Church  History.  "  Happy,"  says  he,*  "  the 
yeoman's  house  into  which  one  of  these  Dutchmen  did  enter, 
bringing  industry  and  wealth  along  with  him.  Such  who 
came  in  as  strangers  within  doors,  soon  after  went  out  bride- 
grooms and  returned  sons-in-laws,  having  married  the  daugh- 
ters of  their  landlords  who  first  entertained  them  ;  yea,  those 
yeomen  in  whose  houses  they  harbored,  soon  proceeded  gentle- 
men, gaining  them  estates  to  themselves,  arms  and  worsliip  to 
their  estates."  During  his  great  military  preparations,  Edward 
summoned  a  parliament,  whose  principal  business  it  was  to 
make  laws  for  the  encouragement  of  the  woollen  manufacture 
in  England.!  The  exportation  of  rams  was  prohibited,  and  it 
was  decreed  that  no  foreign  cloth  manufactures  should  be  re- 
ceived, and  that  no  one  even  should  wear  cloth  made  beyond 
the  sea.  Through  these  measures  the  manufacture  became  so 
well  established  that  the  first  export  of  English  cloth  dates  from 
this  reign.  A  tax  upon  importations  was  substituted  for  the 
prohibition,  and  in  the  twenty-eighth  year  of  this  reigu 
the  exports  of  cloths  were  triple  the  imports."^ 


»  Fuller's  Church  History.    London,  1842.     Vol.  i.  p.  419. 

t  Bischoff  on  Wool,  &c.,  vol.  i.  p.  55. 

X  In  the  sixth  and  seventh  years  of  Elizabeth,  the  woollen  manufacture  had  so 
much  increased  that  the  export  of  woollen  goods  to  Antwerp  alone,  according  to  Cam- 
den, amounted  to  750,000Z. ;  and  the  whole  value  of  the  exports  in  1564  was  1,200, OOOi, 
(Smith,  vol.  i.  p.  72),  all  fabricated  of  English  wool.  The  vigor  of  the  woollen  trade  at 
this  period  is  attributed  by  Smith  to  the  abundance  of  gold  and  silver,  in  consequence 
of  the  recent  discovery  of  South  America.  Mr.  Bigelow  has  shown  that  the  chief 
causes  of  the  large  increase  of  British  exports  since  1853,  usually  attributed  to  the  free- 
trade  acts,  are  found  outside  of  the  tariff  laws,  and  principally  in  the  greatly  increased 


13 


For  five 'centuries  the  system  of  protection  to  the  wool- 
manufacturers,  inaugurated  by  Edward  III.,  was  continued  by 
the  succeeding  sovereigns  and  parliaments  of  England.  The 
abstract  of  laws  relating  to  the  growers  of  wool  and  the  manu- 
facture thereof,  made  in  1772,  enumerates  three  hundred  and 
eleven  laws,*  all  tending  to  one  object,  —  the  encourage- 
ment of  the  manufacture.  With  this  object  the  exportation  of 
wool,  after  being  several  times  suspended,  was  definitely 
prohibited  in  1660,  and  so  continued  until  the  year  1825.t 
The  exportation  of  fuller's  earth  was  forbidden.  The  expor- 
tation of  sheep  was  prohibited  under  the  severest  penalties ;  J 
and  even  sheep-shearing  could  not  be  carried  on  within  five 
miles  of  the  sea  without  the  presence  of  a  revenue  officer.^ 
To  secure  the  manufacturers  against  a  monopoly  of  wool,  the 
number  of  sheep  to  be  kept  by  one  person  was  limited  to  two 
thousand. II  One  statute  required  that  all  black  cloth  and 
mourning  stuff  worn  at  funerals  should  be  made  of  British 
"wool  alone  ;  another,  which  was  carried  into  full  effect  for  one 
hundred  and  thirty  years,  or  nearly  to  the  present  century, 
ordained  that  every  person  should  be  buried  in  a  shroud  com- 
posed of  woollen  cloth  alone.^  The  export  of  woollen  cloth  from 
England  to  any  foreign  ports  was  permitted  without  a  duty.** 
The  export  of  woollen  goods  from  Ireland,  or  any  of  the  English 
Plantations  in  America,  was  prohibited.! f  Upon  the  application 
of  the  London  and  Canterbury  woollen  weavers,  the  wearing  of 


supply  of  gold,  the  annual  produce  of  which  has  tripled  since  1848.  The  correspond- 
ence between  the  periods  of  Elizabeth  and  Victoria  is  quite  remarkable.  —  The  Timff 
Question,  p.  17. 

*  Blschoff,  vol.  i.  p.  6.    See  Bigelow's  Tariff  Question,  p.  17. 

t  Porter's  Progress  of  the  Nation.    London,  1851.    p.  168. 

t  Youatt,  p.  216. 

§  Bisclioff,  vol.  i.  p.  244. 

II  Youatt,  p.  216. 

T[  Youatt,  p.  224. 

**  First  Willinm  and  Mar}'.    Bischoff,  vol.J.  p.  85. 
tt  Tenth  and  Eleventh  William  III.,  chap.  10.    Bischoff,  vol.  1.  p.  89. 


14 


Indian  calicoes  was  forbidden,  and  afterwards,*  when  it  was 
apprehended  that  the  rising  cotton  manufacture  might  inter- 
fere with  the  great  national  industry  of  woollens,  the  use  of 
British  printed  calicoes  was  restricted  to  those  only  of  a  blue 
color.f  Even  the  great  commercial  companies  of  England  lent 
their  protecting  influence.  The  powerful  East-India  Company, 
possessing  the  power  to  open  an  almost  boundless  market  for 
woollen  goods,  made  it  an  invariable  rule  that  in  the  cloth 
which  it  exported,  both  the  material  and  manufacture  should 
be  British.  This  rule  was  inflexible  till  18284  The  arts  of 
diplomacy  were  not  wanting  on  the  part  of  England  in  aid 
of  her  favorite  interest.  At  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, Portugal,  by  interdicting  the  entry  of  foreign  fabrics,  had 
succeeded  in  supplying  her  own  population  and  Brazil  with 
woollen  goods  of  her  own  manufacture. §  In  1703,  England, 
having  in  view  principally  the  interests  of  the  woollen  manu- 
facture, made  the  famous  Treaty  of  Methuen,  by  which,  in 
consideration  of  certain  favors  to  Portuguese  wines,  she 
secured  the  free  admission  to  Portugal  of  her  woollen  goods. || 
The  English  historian  might  well  say,  "  this  treaty  hath 
proved  very  advantageous  to  England,  in  the  woollen  trade 
particularly."  ^  But  this  treaty  was  a  mortal  blow  to  Portugal. 
Her  manufacturing  industry  disappeared.  While  all  Europe 
progresses,  Portugal  remains  stationary.  The  few  of  her  pro- 
ducts shown  at  the  great  Exhibition  in  1862,  were  noticed  only 
for  the  melancholy  representation  which  they  gave  of  her 
industry. 

Tiie  measures  of  protection  which  were  most  significant  of 


*  Bischoff,  vol.  1.  p.  90. 

t  Bischoff,  vol.  i.  p.  97. 

t  Report  of  Committee  of  House  of  Lords,  1828.    Examination  of  Mr.  Ireland. 

§  Smith's  Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  394.  "I  appeal  to  every  person,"  says  Smith, 
"  that  lived  in  Portugal  from  the  year  1683  to  1703,  during  the  time  of  the  prohibition, 
whether  Portugal  did  not  make  cloth  enough  for  herself  and  Brazil." 

II  Smith,  vol.  i.  p.  394. 

^  See  Smollett's  History  of  England,  vol.  i.  p.  668. 


15 


the  devotion  of  England  to  her  manufacturing  interests,  were 
the  prohibition,  for  nearly  a  century  and  a  half,  of  the  exporta- 
tion of  British  wool,*  and  the  admission  of  foreign  wool  at  a 
merely  nominal,  or  very  moderate  duty,  in  spite  of  the  violent 
reclamations  of  the  landed  aristocracy.  In  a^ struggle  of  over 
a  hundred  years  with  the  manufacturers,  the  landed  proprietors 
had  but  one  brief  success,  where  they  secured,  for  four  years 
only — viz.,  from  1819  to  1824 — a  tax  upon  foreign  wool  of  six 
pence  per  pound. f  It  had  become  a  deep-rooted  sentiment  of 
British  statesmen  of  every  party,  that  their  higliest  duty  to  the 
State  was  the  encouragement  of  their  own  manufactures,  and, 
first  of  all,  those  of  wool,  for  so  many  years  their  chief  export, 
and  peculiarly  national  staple, — "  eminently  the  foundation," 
as  it  was  called,  "of  English  riches,":}:  and  "the  flower  and 
strength,  the  revenue  and  blood  of  England."  §  Tlie  "  wool 
sack,"  upon  which  the  Lord  Chancellor  of  England  has  sat  for 
ages  as  the  President  of  the  House  of  Lords,  is  a  symbolical  tra- 
dition of  the  importance  which  the  nation  has  always  attached  to 
the  woollen  industry.  ||  It  was  declared  by  statute  that  "  wool 
and  woollen  manufactures,  cloth,  serge,  baize,  kerseys,  and 
other  stuffs,  made  or  mixed  with  wool,  are  the  greatest  and 


*  "  The  one  sole  reason  why  England  obtained  the  mastery  of  the  ocean,  and  coni- 
mand  of  the  world's  business,  is  that  she  exported  no  raw  material;  and  the  reason  why 
the  Southern  States  went  into  ruin  by  the  route  of  rebellion  is  because  they  exported 
nothing  else."  —  The  Western  States;  their  Pursuits  and  Policy,  by  Dr.  William  Elder, 
p.  20. 

t  In  1802,  a  duty  of  5s.  3d.  sterling  per  cwt.  was  laid  upon  foreign  wool.  This  was 
gradually  raised  till  it  reached  6s.  8d.  per  cwt.  In  1819,  the  ministers  wanted  to  raise 
1,400^.  by  a  tax  on  malt;  and  the  landed  aristocracy  refused  their  assent  unless  a  tax  was 
laid  on  wool,  and  the  tax  of  sixpence  a  pound  was  imposed,  the  bill  having  been  hurried 
through  Parliament  before  the  manufacturers  could  be  heard.     Bischolf,  vol.  1.  p.  452. 

t  Sir  Josiah  Childs.     Smith's  Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  157. 

§  Golden  Fleece.    1656.    Smith's  Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  139. 

II  "  The  antiquitie  of  wool  within  this  kingdom  hath  been  beyond  the  memorie  of 
man,  so  highly  respected  for  those  many  Benefits  therein  that  a  customable  use  has 
always  been  observed  to  make  it  the  seat  of  our  wise  learned  judges  in  the  sigiit  of  our 
noble  Peers  (in  the  Parliament  House)  to  imprint  the  memorie  of  this  wortiiy  Com- 
moditie  within  the  minds  of  those  firm  supporters  and  chief  rulers  of  the  land." — John 
May,  1618.    Smith's  Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  91. 


16 


most  profitable  commodities  of  the  kingdom."  *  One  of  the 
greatest  English  lawyers,  Mr.  Lawes,  afterwards  Lord  Ellen- 
borough,  speaking  of  this  interest  before  the  House  of  Lords, 
saidjf  "  to  state  to  your  Lordships  the  extent  of  the  manufac- 
ture, would  be  to  state  that  it  is  at  least  a  third  in  point  of 
export,  that  it  is  a  fourth  of  the  national  income,  as  derived 
from  all  its  various  sources.  Its  magnitude  is  so  important,  its 
connections  with  the  vital  interests  of  the  country  so  close  and 
intimate,  that  it  has  been  the  principal  object  of  attention  in 
the  framing  of  the  statutes  upon  your  rolls  from  the  earliest 
period  of  any  ascertained  act  of  legislation  of  this  country." 
The  encouragement  of  this  industry  had  received  the  sanction 
of  the  greatest  of  English  names,  even  that  of  the  founder  of 
experimental  philosophy.  Lord  Bacon,  addressing  the  future 
ministers  of  his  sovereign,  patriotically  exclaims,  $  "  Let  us 
advance  the  native  commodities  of  our  own  kingdom,  and 
employ  our  own  countrymen  before  strangers.  Let  us  turn  the 
wools  of  the  land  into  cloths  and  stuffs  of  our  own  growth.  It 
would  set  many  thousands  to  work;  and  thereby  one  of  the 
materials  would,  by  industry,  be  multiplied  to  five,  ten, 
and  many  times  to  twenty-five  times  more  in  value,  being 
wrought."  It  was  by  such  lessons  and  traditions  as  these  that 
British  legislators  had  become  imbued  with  devotion  to  the 
woollen  trade,  as  with  loyalty  to  the  throne.  In  the  whole 
history  of  the  world  there  is  no  such  example  of  persistent 
national  care,  continued  alike  through  all  administrations,  in 
peace  and  in  war,  under  commonwealth  and  monarchy ;  and 
thus  "  fondled,  favored,  and  cherished,"  to  use  the  words  of 
Mr.  Huskisson,  §  the  woollen  manufacture  in  England  has 
advanced,  with  constantly  increasing  prosperity,  only,  in  mod- 

*  Tenth  and  Eleventh  William  III.,  chap.  10. 
t  Bischoff,  vol.  i.  p.  323. 

X  Bischoif,  vol.  i.  p.  321.    From  Mr.  Lawes'  speech.    I  do  not  find  the  passage  in 
Lord  Bacon's  Works. 
§  Bischoff,  vol.  i.  p.  5. 


17 


ern  times,  overshadowed  by  its  own  offspring,  the  cotton  man- 
ufactnre,  and  still  surpasses  that  of  all  other  nations  in  the 
quantity  and  value  of  its  fabrics. 

"  The  rapid  growth  and  prodigious  magnitude  of  the  cotton 
manufacture  of  Great  Britain,"  for  a  century  has  not  elapsed 
since  its  infancy,  have  been  called  "  the  most  remarkable  phe- 
nomena in  the  history  of  industry."*  But  it  should  be 
remembered  that  this  industry  was  the  natural  offshoot  from 
the  woollen  manufacture.  Through  the  protection  of  four 
centuries  afforded  to  the  woollen  trade  mainly,  and  in  a  less 
degree,  only  because  they  were  less  important,  to  the  linen 
and  silk  trades,  England  had  become  a  nation  of  spinners  and 
weavers,  or  of  artisans  subsidiary  to  them.  The  textile  crafts 
had  become,  by  hereditary  transmission,  as  fixed  as  in  the  castes 
of  India.  The  skill  and  taste  for  textile  industry  was  already 
developed  for  application  to  a  kindred  fibre.  Some  of  the  first 
and  most  important  inventions  which  have  produced  the  won- 
derful results  of  the  cotton  manufacture,  sprang  directly  from 
that  of  woollens.  To  instance  one  only;  John  Kay,  residing  in 
Colchester,  where  the  woollen  manufacture  was  then  carried 
on,  devised  the  fly-shuttle,  by  which  double  the  quantity  of 
doth,  and  of  a  better  quality-,  could  be  produced  by  each  work- 
man, and  with  less  labor.  The  Yorkshire  clothiers  were  the 
first  to  adopt  his  improvements,  which  form  a  part  of  every 
power-loom  of  the  millions  of  silk,  cotton,  linen,  and  woollen- 
looms  in  all  parts  of  the  world. f  The  commerce  and  capital 
which  supplied  the  raw  material  from  abroad  for  the  rising 
manufacture  had  grown  up  from  the  woollen  trade  principally  ; 
but  it  had  exerted  a  more  important  influence  in  making  capi- 
talists familiar  with  the  direct  and  incidental  profits  of  manu 
facturing  industry,  and  in  assuring  them  that  the  favor  of 
government,  which  had  been  extended  for  centuries  to  oncj 


*  McCulloch's  Commercial  Dictionar}',  article  Cotton, 
t  Brief  Biographies  of  Inventors  of  Machines,  by  Bennett  Woodcroft,  p.  3. 

3 


18 


would  never  be  wanting  for  a  kindred  interest.  Hence  capital 
flowed  by  a  natural  transition  into  tlie  new  channel,  and  inven- 
tion found  a  fresh  field  for  its  creative  skill  under  the  patent 
system  which  England  had  inaugurated  as  a  part  of  her  pro- 
tective policy.  The  subject  which  I  have  proposed  for  this 
address,  —  the  national  influence  of  our  own  peculiar  manu- 
facture,—  finds  its  most  brilliant  example  in  the  history  of 
English  industry,  which  no  less  illustrates  the  more  important 
truth,  that  any  industry,  thoroughly  incorporated  in  the  nation- 
al existence,  will  have  new  offshoots  and  unexpected  develop- 
ments, and  may  enrich  a  nation  even  more  than  by  its  own 
fruits,  in  opening  fresh  sources  of  productive  power. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  last  century  the  woollen  manufac- 
ture received  in  its  turn  the  inventions  first  applied  to  cotton- 
spinning.  They  were,  first  of  all,  the  great  discovery  of  Watt, 
which  furnished  a  motive-power  everywhere  applicable;  the 
roller-spinning  of  Paul,  adopted  by  Arkwright,  which  furnished 
an  automatic  mechanism,  instead  of  muscular  force,  which 
drew  and  twisted  the  fibre  in  a  continuous  thread ;  the  jenny 
of  Hargreaves,  which  drew  at  once  from  ten  to  sixty  or  seventy 
threads ;  the  mule  of  Crompton,  which  increased  the  power  of 
the  spinner  a  hundred  fold  ;  and  the  power-loom  of  Cartwright, 
which  quadrupled  the  power  of  the  weaver.*  All  these  inven- 
tions, and  what  was  equally  important,  the  factory  system  of 
Arkwright,  were  applied,  upon  a  large  scale,  to  the  woollen 
manufacture,  first  by  Mr.  Gott,  who  added  the  gig-mill  for  rais- 
ing the  wool  on  the  cloth,  and  shearing-frames  worked  also  by 
power.  These  improvements  gave  a  vast  extension  to  the 
manufacture.  The  use  of  woollen  tissues  increased  with  the 
low  price  of  production,  which  continued  to  advance  with 
accelerated  progress.  At  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century 
Great  Britain  already  consumed  in  her  fabrics  ninety-four  mil- 
lions of  pounds  of  her  own  wool,  and  eight  millions  imported. 

*  Woodcroft,  p.  3,  et  seq. 


19 


In  1828,  the  number  of  sheep  in  Great  Britain  had  increased 
one-fifth,  and  the  average  weight  of  the  fleeces  in  equal  pro- 
portion.* Mr.  Bernoville,  in  his  admirable  work  on  the  "  In- 
dustry of  Combed  Wools,"  published  in  the  report  made  to  the 
French  government  on  the  labors  of  the  French  Commission, 
at  the  Universal  Exposition  of  1851,  estimates  the  number 
of  pounds  of  wool  in  Great  Britain  in  1851  at  two  hundred 
and  eight  million  pounds,  so  that  the  production  doubled  in 
fifty  years.  This  increase  of  production  was  caused  partly  by 
the  increase  of  the  number  of  sheep,  but  principally  by  the 
increase  in  the  weight  of  fleeces.  Within  that  period  a  genu- 
ine transformation  has  taken  place  in  the  English  races.  To 
attain  the  utmost  possible  weight  of  mutton,  sheep  are  fed  to 
their  utmost  capacity,  and  the  increase  of  flesh  is  accompanied 
by  a  corresponding  increase  of  wool,  which,  losing  in  fineness, 
has  gained  in  strength,  length,  and  brilliancy.  While  the 
domestic  production  has  made  such  extraordinary  progress, 
the  importation  has  increased  with  equal  rapidity.  The  eight 
million  pounds  in  1801  have  risen  successively  from  sixteen 
million  pounds  in  1821  to  fifty-six  millions  in  1841,  to  eighty- 
three  millions  in  1851,  having  increased  tenfold  in  fifty  years. 
In  1859,  the  importation  had  reached  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
three  millions.! 

There  are  no  official  statements  of  the  amount  or  value  of 
the  whole  production  of  British  manufactures,  or  of  the  popu- 
lation employed  in  them ;  we  must,  therefore,  rely  upon  the 
very  general  estimates  of  the  best  authorities,  which,  however, 
differ  so  widely  that  we  can  merely  approximate  the  totals  of 
production  in  the  woollen  manufacture.  Mr.  Bernoville,  in  the 
work  above  quoted,  estimating  the  mean  value  of  the  domestic 
production  of  wool  in  Great  Britain  at  one  franc  twenty  cen- 


*  Porter's  Progress  of  the  Nation.    London,  1851.    p.  168.    Industrie  des  Laines 
peign^es,  par  M.  Bernoville,  p.  11.     Travaux  de  la  Commission  Fran^aise,  vol.  iv. 
t  Bigelow's  Tariff  Question,  Appendix,  p.  198. 


20 


times  the  pound,  and  the  iraportecJ  wool  at  one  franc  seventy 
centimes,  places  the  whole  value  of  wool  employed  hy  British 
industry  at  370,000,000  francs,  or  $74,000,000.  He  estimates 
that  the  value  of  this  wool  is  increased  once  and  a  half  times 
by  the  manufacture,  and  that  the  annual  production  of  woollen 
fabrics  in  1851  was  925,000,000  francs,  or  $185,000,000,  and 
tlie  domestic  consumption  679,000,000  francs,  or  $135,000,000. 
Mr.  Redgrave,  one  of  her  Majesty's  Inspectors  of  Factories, 
estimates  the  value  of  the  British  woollen  and  worsted  manu- 
factures in  1856  at  $183,492,725,  and  the  domestic  consump- 
tion in  Great  Britain,  $111,366,160,  for  each  person  of  its 
population  at  $4.25.*  Mr.  Simmonds,  the  editor  of  Ure's 
"  History  of  the  Cotton  Manufacture,"  estimates  the  total  pro- 
duction of  woollen  goods  in  1860  at  $160,000,000,  and  the 
domestic  consumption  at  one-half  that  amount.  This  estimate 
appears  too  small,  and  that  of  Mr.  Redgrave  seems  most  reli- 
able. Judging  from  the  progress  of  exports,  sixty  millions  of 
dollars  in  1856,  and  eighty  millions  in  1860,  the  value  of  the 
woollen  manufactures  in  the  United  Kingdom  cannot  be  short 
of  $200,000,000.  The  number  of  persons  employed  in  the 
woollen  industry,  in  all  its  ramifications,  was  estimated  in  1841 
at  245,000  persons.  This  number  must  have  vastly  increased 
in  twenty  years.  Mr.  Bernoville  estimates  them  at  400,000 
in  1851.  Statistics  have  been  procured,  from  time  to  time, 
by  the  inspectors  of  factories  in  reference  to  establishments 
under  their  supervision.  They  give  the  number  employed 
in  the  wool  manufacture  in  1856,  at  79,091 ;  and  in  the 
worsted  manufacture  at  87,794 ;  a  total  of  166,885.  The  num- 
ber employed  in  1835  is  stated  at  only  71,274.  The  number 
had  more  than  doubled  in  twenty  years,  although  the  progres- 
sive employment  of  mechanical  means  has  had  a  tendency  to 
diminish  the  number  of  hands.     Precise  data  are  given  only  in 

*  Bigelow's  Tariflf  Question.    Appendix,  p.  199. 


21 


relation  to  establishments  subject  to  the  provisions  of  the  Fac- 
tory Acts,  which  make  the  whole  number  employed  in  all  the 
textile  manufactures  only  682,497.  Mr.  Redgrave  estimates 
that  there  are  887,369  persons  employed  in  textile  fabrics,  not 
subject  to  the  provisions  of  the  Factory  Acts,  which  two  classes 
have  dependent  upon  them  at  least  3,000,000  unemployed 
persons,  representing  a  total  of  4,568,082  persons.  Those 
employed  in  the  woollen  and  worsted  manufactures  constitute 
very  nearly  a  quarter  of  the  whole  number  enumerated  under 
the  provisions  of  the  Factory  Acts,  which  would  give  to  the 
woollen  manufactures  a  population,  depending  upon  them,  of 
over  one  million.  This  immense  progress  in  the  manufacture 
of  wool  has  been  due  principally  to  the  advance  in  the  manu- 
facture of  combing  wools  or  worsted,  which  now  employ  directly 
a  larger  number  than  fabrics  of  carded  wool.  This  progress 
is  best  illustrated  by  the  rapid  increase  of  population  around 
the  manufacturing  centres  of  the  worsted  trade.  In  the  West 
Riding,  where  there  was  only  a  population  of  593,000  inhabi- 
tants in  1801,  it  had  risen,  in  1841,  to  1,154,000  ;  it  had 
increased  at  Halifax  from  63,000  to  130,000 ;  at  Huddersfield 
from  14,000  to  38,000 ;  at  Leeds  from  53,000  to  152,000.  It 
is  still  more  remarkable  at  Bradford,  the  great  centre  of  the 
worsted  trade.  At  the  commencement  of  this  century,  when 
this  town  had  a  population  of  only  13,000  souls,  all  the  wool 
was  spun  and  woven  in  private  houses  of  the  workmen.  In 
1821,  Bradford  had  doubled  the  number  of  its  inhabitants, 
which  were  26,000.  By  the  introduction  of  power-looms  in 
1834,  and  afterwards  the  use  of  cotton  warps  in  woollen  fab- 
rics, and  the  employment  of  alpaca  and  Angora  goat's  wool,  the 
manufacturing  industry  was  so  developed  that  it  sustained  in 
1851  a  population  of  103,000,  an  increase  of  ninety  thousand 
in  half  a  century.*     Such  an  increase  in  this  country  would 


*  Bernoville's  Industrie  des  Laines  peigii^es,  p.  22.    James's  History  of  Worsted 
Mnnufacture,  p.  611,  et.  seq. 


22 


appear  by  no  means  remarkable ;  but  in  England,  where  the 
question  has  been  for  centuries,  how  to  employ  the  present 
population  of  each  year,  the  increase  is  truly  marvellous. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  questions  in  the  study  of  the 
philosophy  of  manufactures  is  their  influence  upon  the  com- 
fort of  mankind  in  diminishing  the  cost  of  production.  The 
amounts  and  values  of  British  exports  are  instructive  upon 
this  question. 

One  of  the  largest  exportations  of  woollen  tissues  from  Eng- 
land occurred  in  the  year  1815,  after  relations  had  been  estab- 
lished with  this  country,  which  had  been  interrupted  by  the 
war.  It  amounted  to  .£9,381,000  in  value,  and  1,482,000 
pieces,  and  twelve  millions  of  yards.  In  1851,  it  amounted  to 
2,637,000  pieces,  and  sixty-nine  million  yards.  The  number  of 
pieces,  comprising  cloths,  damasks,  and  stuffs  in  general,  had 
almost  doubled ;  and  the  number  of  yards,  consisting  princi- 
pally of  articles  of  wool  and  cotton,  had  more  than  quintupled. 
Yet  the  total  value  in  1851  was  only  X9,856,000,  exceeding 
the  exportation  of  1815  about  half  a  million.  The  increase  of 
cheapness  consisted  principally  in  fabrics  of  wool  combined 
with  cotton.* 

This  progress  in  the  cheapness  of  production  has  continued 
since  1851.  It  is  estimated  in  the  report  of  the  International 
Exhibition  of  1862,t  from  well  authenticated  data,  that  al- 
though there  was  a  clear  and  established  advance  of  twenty- 
five  to  twenty -eight  per  cent  in  the  cost  of  wool  between  the 
prices  of  1851  and  1862,  the  manufacturers  had  cheapened 
the  prices  of  goods  between  the  two  periods  from  seven  and  a 
half  to  ten  per  cent,  the  quality  and  weight  being  the  same. 
It  is,  perhaps,  unnecessary  to  say  that  this  increased  cheapness 
of  production  is  no  peculiarity  of  English  manufactures.  The 
facts  here  mentioned  illustrate  a  result  which  is  sure  to  follow 


*  Bemoville,  p.  18. 

t  International  £xhibitioa  of  1862.    Report  of  Juries,  Class  21. 


23 


from  any  well  established  manufacturing  industry.  An  in- 
creased cheapness  of  production  in  England  has  been  eifected 
by  two  otlier  causes,  one  of  which  certainly  will  be  regarded 
by  consumers  with  less  favor.  The  first  is,  the  use  of  cotton 
warps,  which  are  used  as  a  vehicle  to  extend  the  surface  of 
wool  to  such  a  degree  that  millions  of  pounds  of  cotton  are,  as 
it  were,  plated  with  this  material.  Yast  establishments  in 
Lancashire  are  employed  solely  in  making  cotton  warps,  to  be 
woven  with  wool  into  what  are  called  union  fabrics.*  Tiie 
second  is,  the  combination  of  shoddy  with  wool.  Twenty-five 
years  ago,  woollen  rags  were  worth  about  <£4  per  ton,  and 
were  used  only  for  manure.  They  are  now  worth,  in  England, 
£40  per  ton,  to  be  converted  again  into  cloth.  It  is  estimated 
that,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Leeds,  7,000,000  to  8,000,000 
yards  of  cloth,  of  the  value  of  f  15,000,000,  are  annually  manu- 
factured from  this  material ;  and,  that  if  the  supply  of  shoddy 
were  stopped,  it  would  close  one-third  of  the  woollen  mills  in 
the  United  Kingdom,  and  bring  distress  upon  the  West  Rid- 
ing, in  Yorkshire,  as  great  as  that  lately  suffered  in  Lanca- 
shire from  the  want  of  cotton.  It  is  disclosed  in  the  report 
on  the  London  Exhibition  of  1862,  that  sixty-five  million 
pounds  of  shoddy  are  annually  consumed  in  England,  a 
greater  quantity  than  the  whole  wool  product  in  the  United 
States,  estimated  at  60,264,913  pounds  by  the  census  of  1860  !  f 
It  is  one  of  the  advantages  of  depending  upon  foreign  impor- 
tation for  our  goods,  that  we  are  in  blissful  ignorance  of  their 


*  Mr.  Anderson,  a  gentleman  of  much  experience  in  English  wool,  stated  before  an 
agricultural  club  in  England,  that  a  single  hogget  fleece  weighing  twenty  pounds,  with 
a  length  of  staple  of  about  seventeen  inches,  "  when  used  in  manufacture  to  its  utmost 
extent,  as  an  admixture  with  cotton  to  fabricate  the  finest  alpaca  fabrics,  would  suffice 
to  make  upwards  of  twelve  pieces,  each  forty-two  yards  in  length,  and  very  possibly 
might  be  extended  to  sixteen  pieces,  or  six  hundred  and  seventy-two  yards." —  Ohio 
Agricultural  Report,  1863,  p.  224. 

I  would,  in  this  connection,  invite  attention  to  the  most  valuable  and  admirable 
papers  and  communications  on  sheep,  husbandry  and  wool,  furnished  for  these  reports 
by  Mr.  Kiippart,  Secretary  of  the  Ohio  State  Board  of  Agriculture. 

t  Eighth  Census  of  the  United  States,  vol.  Agriculture,  p.  86. 


24 


origin,  and  are  not  shocked  with  the  consciousness  of  being 
clad  in  the  cast-off  habiliments  of  a  Polish  Jew  or  an  Italian 
beggar. 

I  will  close  this  sketch  by  some  general  remarks  upon  the 
character  of  the  British  industry  in  woollens.  Tlie  whole 
energies  of  British  manufacturers  are  directed  to  supply  the 
masses  with  goods  of  the  utmost  cheapness.  They  do  not  seek 
so  much  excellence  in  the  fabrics  as  marketable  products.  It 
was  remarked  by  continental  observers,  at  the  two  great  expo- 
sitions, that  although  fabrics  of  wonderful  perfection  were  exhi- 
bited, they  were  not  specimens  of  the  ordinary  work  of  their 
spindles  and  looms.  The  colors  of  their  goods  are  excellent, 
much  better  than  their  designs  ;  but,  above  all,  they  surpass  in 
the  art  of  dressing  their  fabrics  so  as  to  conceal  their  defects 
and  make  them  attractive  to  purchasers.  Their  inventive 
capacity  is  shown,  particularly  in  the  application  to  new  uses 
of  the  vast  variety  of  raw  materials  which  their  extensive  com- 
merce supplies,  but,  more  than  all,  in  mechanical  improve- 
ments for  substituting  the  iron  frame  for  the  human  hand. 
Tlie  breaking  up  of  existing  machinery  and  tlie  replacing  of 
new  is  the  marked  feature  in  the  present  era  of  British  manu- 
factures. The  abundance  and  cheapness  of  capital,  cheap  food 
under  the  change  in  the  corn  laws,  the  free  admission  of  raw 
materials,  a  well  founded  confidence  in  friendly  legislation, 
and  the  establishment  of  mercantile  houses  in  all  parts  of  the 
world,  sustain  England  in  the  war  which  she  is  waging  unceas- 
ingly against  the  manufacturing  industry  of  all  other  nations ; 
and  would  render  a  strife  against  her  utterly  hopeless,  without 
the  barriers  of  countervailing  duties  which  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation  has  placed  around  all  other  industrious  nations. 

The  history  of  the  woollen  industry  of  France,  the  second  in 
the  amount  of  its  productions,  and  the  first  in  the  general 
excellence  of  its  products,  exhibits  the  important  part  which 
this  industry  performs  in  developing  the  national  prosperity, 


25 


and  how  it  may  flourish  or  decay  under   the   favorable   or 
adverse  policies  of  governments. 

This  industry  received  its  first  impulse  in  France,  near  the 
close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  from  the  celebrated  edict  of 
Nantes,  which  restored  to  that  country  the  Protestants,  who 
had  become  tlie  most  enlightened  merchants  and  skilful  work- 
men in  Europe.  They  brought  from  Germany,  and  the  Low 
Countries  where  they  had  wandered,  the  arts  of  spinning, 
weaving,  and  dyeing  woollens,  and  founded  the  first  establish- 
ments for  making  woollen  cloths.  The  infant  manufactures, 
slightly  advanced  by  the  agricultural  improvements  of  Sully, 
who  introduced  some  important  breeds  of  sheep,  and,  languish- 
ing under  the  inauspicious  administration  of  Richelieu,  were 
finally  planted  in  their  present  flourishing  seats  by  Colbert,  the 
illustrious  minister  of  Louis  XIV.  Under  his  administration, 
the  manufactures  of  new  products  created  by  the  arts  of  Italy, 
Holland,  and  Germany,  were  attracted  to  the  French  soil  by 
seductive  offers  made  to  foreign  artisans.  The  woollen  manu- 
facture received  his  special  attention.  He  obtained,  from 
Louis  XIV.,  the  disposal  of  fifty  thousand  livres  to  be  distributed 
in  encouraging  this  industry.  At  this  period,  Holland  alone 
had  attained  any  perfection  in  the  manufacture  of  fine  cloths. 
Colbert  attracted  Gosse  Van  Robais  from  Holland,  by  enor- 
mous concessions,  to  fabricate  —  as  his  patent,  signed  by  the 
King,  declared  —  fine  cloths,  after  the  fashion  of  Spain  and 
Holland.  Of  this  act  Thiers  says,  —  "When  Louis  XIV. 
struck  down  the  Spanish  power,  Colbert,  at  his  side,  executed 
conquests  more  important,  by  introducing  the  manufacture  of 
cloths  into  France."  *  Not  content  with  naturalizing  foreign 
skill,  he  imposed  heavy  duties  upon  foreign  manufactures,  and 
attempted  the  amelioration  of  flocks  by  imported  breeds ;  and 
it  is  admitted  that  France  owes  to  his  wise  acts  and  counsels 


*  Industrie  des  Laines  foule^s,  par  M.  J.  Randoiug,  p. 
4 


26 


the  most  important  developments  of  her  industry.*  It  is  with 
great  justice,  then,  that  our  own  groat  political  economist, 
whose  works,  translated  into  five  languages,  have  been  adopted 
as  text-books  in  the  universities  of  the  continent  of  Europe, 
has  selected  the  name  of  the  French  financier  to  designate  that 
school  of  statesmanship  which  aims  to  develop,  by  protection 
and  encouragement,  the  industrial  wealth  of  a  nation. f 

The  woollen  interest  became  again  depressed  under  Louis 
XV.,  in  whose  reign  those  arts  alone  flourished  which  adminis- 
tered to  pleasure  and  luxury.  The  manufacture  revived  under 
Louis  XVI.,  in  whose  reign  merino  sheep  were  naturalized  in 
France,  to  be  again  struck  down  by  a  fatal  error  of  adminis- 
tration. In  1786,  a  treaty  was  concluded  between  France  and 
England,  which  admitted  into  the  latter  country  French  pro- 
ductions of  luxury  and  taste,  in  exchange  for  an  analogous 
concession  for  the  admission  to  France  of  English  goods  of 
apparently  small  price,  but  which,  suiting  all  classes,  are  the 
essential  bases  of  the  industry  of  a  people.  This  treaty  was 
the  most  fatal  blow  that  the  textile  manufactures  had  ever  re- 
ceived. England,  favored  as  we  have  seen  by  continued  pro- 
tection, had  already  made  great  progress  in  the  capacity  of 
manufacturing  at  comparatively  low  prices.  Before  the  lapse 
of  the  second  year  from  this  treaty,  France  was  so  flooded  by 
English  importations  of  cloth  that  she  ceased  to  attempt  even 
to  supply  her  own  consumption.  Although  the  policy  of  1786 
was  speedily  retraced,  and  protection  restored,  the  French 
manufactures  had  not  recovered  from  the  shock  when  the 
revolution  completed  the  prostration  of  all  industry.^ 

*  See  the  Works  of  Mr.  H.  C.  CsLrey,  passim. 

t  Smith,  in  his  Memoirs,  speaks  thus  instructively  of  this  great  statesman:  "Mon- 
sieur Colbert,  erecting  manufactures  of  wool  in  all  parts  of  France,  and  prohibiting  all 
the  English  woollen  manufactures  to  be  imported  among  them,  in  a  few  years  set  the 
poor  to  work  throughout  that  kingdom;  .  .  .  the  first  consequence  of  which  was, 
that  the  King  of  France  saw  all  his  subjects  clothed,  however  indifierently,  with  the 
manufactures  of  their  own  country,  who,  but  a  few  years  before,  bought  all  their 
clothes  from  England. —  Vol.  ii.  p.  290. 

t  Randoing,  Industrie  des  Lainos  foule^s,  p.  21.  Manual  of  Social  Science,  by  H. 
C.  Carey,  p.  209. 


27 


No  sooner  had  the  first  Consul,  Bonaparte,  grasped,  with  a 
firm  hand,  the  reins  of  State,  than  he  resolved  to  develop  upon 
the  French  soil  all  the  elements  of  wealth  concealed  within  its 
bosom.  He  wished  to  appropriate  for  France  all  sciences,  arts, 
and  industries.  Made  a  member  of  the  Institute,  he  uttered 
this  noble  sentiment:  —  "The  true  power  of  the  French  Repub- 
lic should  consist,  above  all,  in  its  not  allowing  a  single  new 
idea  to  exist  which  it  does  not  make  its  own."  *  To  learn  the 
necessities  and  resources  of  the  nation,  he  called  upon  savans, 
painters,  and  artisans,  to  adorn  with  their  productions  the  vast 
hall  of  the  ancient  Louvre.  From  this  epoch  a  new  career  was 
opened  to  the  industry  of  France,  which  found  its  most  magnifi- 
cent protector  in  the  chief  of  the  State.  Napoleon  said :  — 
"  Spain  has  twenty-five  millions  of  merinos ;  I  wish  France  to 
have  a  hundred  millions."!  To  effect  this,  among  other  admin- 
istrative aids,  he  established  sixty  additional  sheepfolds  to  those 
of  Rambouillet,  where  agriculturalists  could  obtain  the  use  of 
Spanish  rams  without  expense.  By  the  continental  blockade, 
he  closed  France  and  the  greater  part  of  Europe  against  Eng- 
lish importations  ;  and  the  manufacturers  of  France  were 
pushed  to  their  utmost  to  supply,  not  only  their  domestic,  but 
European  consumption.  They  had  to  replace,  by  imitating 
them,  the  English  commodities  to  which  the  people  had  been 
so  long  accustomed.  The  old  routines  of  manufocturing  were 
abandoned,  and  the  reign  of  the  Emperor  became,  in  all  the 
industrial  arts,  one  long  series  of  discoveries  and  progress. 
Napoleon  saw  that  the  conquest  of  the  industry  of  England  was 
no  less  important  than  the  destruction  of  its  fleets  and  armies. 
He  appealed  to  patriotism,  as  well  as  science  and  the  arts, 
to  aid  him  in  his  strife  with  the  modern  Carthage.  Visiting 
the  establishment  for  printing  calicoes  of  the  celebrated  Ober- 
hampf,   Napoleon   said   to  him,  as  he  saw  the  perfection  of 

*  Bulletin  de  la  Soci^te  Imperlale  Zoologiqae  d'Acclimatation,  2d  Serie,  t.  i.  p.  666. 
t  Bernoville,  p.  133. 


28 


the  fabrics,  —  Nous  faisons  tovs  deux  la  guerre  d  VAngle- 
terre,  mais  je  crois  que  le  meilleure  est  encore  la  voire  — 
"  We  are  both  of  us  carrying  on  a  war  with  England ;  but  I 
think  that  yours,  after  all,  is  the  best,"  "  These  words,"  says 
M.  Randoing,  "  so  flattering  and  so  just,  were  repeated  from 
one  end  of  France  to  the  other ;  they  so  inflamed  the  imagina- 
tions of  the  people,  that  the  meanest  artisan,  believing  himself 
called  upon  to  be  the  auxiliary  of  the  great  man,  had  but  one 
thought,  the  ruin  of  England."  * 

The  fabrications  of  cloths  attained  such  high  perfection  dur- 
ing this  period,  that  since  then  the  only  progress  has  been  the 
modification  of  details.  During  this  period  the  chemical  arts 
of  dyeing  attained  the  excellence  so  characteristic  of  French 
colors;  and,  during  this  period,  the  mechanical  genius  of  Ja- 
quard,  aided  by  the  practical  skill  of  Depouilly,  produced  the 
loom  which  has  been  justly  regarded  as  the  greatest  invention 
in  the  art  of  weaving  of  the  present  century,  and  has  only  been 
eclipsed  by  the  great  achievement  of  our  own  inventor,  who 
made  the  Jaquard  loom  automatic!  The  profits  acquired  by 
successful  manufacturers,  during  this  period  of  prosperity, 
were  immediately  applied  to  the  erection  of  vast  factories,  and 
Mulhouse,  St.  Quentin,  Tarare,  and  Roubaix,  at  present  re- 
nowned seats  of  the  woollen  manufacture,  received  the  ele- 
ments of  progress  and  wealth  which  they  have  not  since  ceased 
to  develop.  Of  all  the  conquests  of  Napoleon,  the  greatest  by 
far,  the  industrial  independence  of  France,  is  still  secure.^  And 
the  assaults  of  British  free  trade  are  still  unavailing  against 


*  Randoing,  p.  11. 

t  For  an  account  of  Mr.  Bigelow's  great  invention,  see  Preliminary  Report  of  Com- 
missioner of  Patents,  1863.  The  report  says,  "  It  now  presents  a  machine  which  is  ad- 
mitted to  be  unsurpassed  by  any  thing  which  the  mechanical  genius  of  man  has  ever 
devised."    p.  11. 

X  "  Protection,  the  industrial  creation  of  Napoleon,  the  most  precious  and  principal 
cause  of  his  conquests."  Industrie  des  cotons,  par  M.  Mimirel,  President  du  Coimcil 
General  des  Manufactures  de  France,  etc.  p.  5. 


29 


the  bulwarks  of  protection  established  through  his  maxims  and 
example.* 

Thanks  to  the  immortal  founder  of  the  industrial  glory  of 
France,  she  has  never  been  hoodwinked  by  the  specious  phi- 
losophy of  British  free  trade.  She  saw,  when  Mr.  Huskisson 
suppressed  the  prohibitory  duty  upon  French  silk,  that  it  wcs 
only  because  he  could  not  suppress  the  contraband  trade,  and 
because  the  duty  of  twenty-five  per  cent  was  a  more  efficient 
protection  of  British  silks.  "  When  the  British  Parliament 
applaud  the  absolute  enfranchisement  of  commerce,"  says 
Baron  Dupin,  in  1852,  "  they  clap  their  hands,  and  these  hands 
are  covered  with  English  gloves,  whose  inferiority  is  protected 
against  foreign  gloves  by  a  duty  of  twenty-five  per  cent." 
Whenever  a  new  manufacture,  not  provided  for  in  the  tariff 
regulations,  has  been  attempted,  the  French  have  seen  it 
crushed  by  British  capitalists,  who  had  been  instructed  by  Mr. 
Brougham,  that  "  England  could  afford  to  incur  some  loss  on 
the  export  of  English  goods,  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  for- 
eign manufactures  in  their  cradle.''^  f  "  Three  times,"  says 
Dr.  Sacc,  "  since  the  commencement  of  the  present  century, 
have  attempts  been  made  in  France  to  spin  the  wool  of  the 
Angora  goat.  Each  attempt  has  failed ;  for,  as  soon  as  the 
products  appeared  in  the  market,  the  English  spinners  lowered 
the  prices  from  twenty  to  twenty-five  per  cent,  and  rendered 
competition  impossible."  :j:  The  Anglo-French  Treaty  of  1860, 
although  often  referred  to  as  evincing  a  change  in  the  protec- 
tive policy  of  France,  still  carefully  guarded  her  manufactures. 
The  Leeds  Chamber  of  Commerce,  the  highest  authority  in 
relation  to  woollens,  regarded  the  duties  under  that  treaty  as 
prohibitory.     Lord  Grey  asserted,  without  contradiction,  in  the 


*  Tableau  Statistique  des  Industries,  Fran(;aises  du  coton,  de  laine  at  de  la  soie, 
par  Baron  Charles  Dupin,  p.  9.     Travaux  de  la  Commission  Fran^aise,  t.  iv. 

t  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Patents  for  the  year  1861.     Agriculture,  p.  17. 
X  Bulletin  de  la  Socidt^  Imperiale  Zoologique,  &c.,  t.  v.  p.  579. 


30 


House  of  Lords,  that  "Franco  retained  her  whole  system  of 
navigation  laws.  She  bound  herself  to  no  duties  on  her  manu- 
factured goods  lower  than  thirty  per  cent  in  the  first  instance, 
and  twenty-five  per  cent  afterwards.  The  only  articles,  on 
which  she  made  any  reduction,  were  coal  and  iron,  which  she 
wanted  in  order  to  stimulate  her  manufactures."  * 

The  condition  of  the  woollen  manufacture,  under  this  system, 
must  be  regarded  with  no  little  interest.  The  number  of  sheep 
in  France  in  1851,  according  to  Mr.  Bernoville,  who  is  my  prin- 
cipal authority  in  the  following  statements,  f  was  40,000,000. 
Each  fleece,  upon  an  average,  comprising  the  lambs,  weighing, 
washed  upon  the  back,  about  lj^\  kilogramme,  the  40,000,- 
000  of  sheep  give  the  number  of  72,000,000  kilogrammes, 
158,832,000  lbs.,  as  the  whole  weight  of  domestic  wool,  worth,  at 
a  minimum  of  3  francs  50  centimes  per  kilogramme,  the  average 
of  the  qualities,  252,000,000  francs.  Tlie  mean  of  importation 
duty  paid  for  these  years  was  of  the  value  of  55,000,000  francs, 
making  the  total  value  of  wool  employed  307,000,000  francs. 
Tlie  value  of  the  raw  wool,  which  enters  into  the  average  French 
tissues,  is  estimated  at  one-third  of  the  price  of  the  tissues  when 
they  enter  into  the  hands  of  the  consumer.  The  value  of  the 
raw  wool,  tripled,  is  921,000,000  francs,  or  $184,200,000.  The 
mean  of  exportation  for  three  years  before,  including  1851,  was 
116,000,000  francs,  or  $23,200,000.  There  remained  805,000,- 
000  francs,  or  $161,000,000,  as  the  value  of  the  domestic  con- 
sumption in  France  in  1851. 

The  average  of  French  exportation  of  woollens  from  1827  to 
1836,  was  38,000,000  francs.  The  exportation  of  the  same 
fabrics  in  1851  was  122,500,000  francs.  Thus  there  was  an 
increase  of  exportations  in  twenty  years  of  220  per  cent. 
The  exportations  of  woollens  from  England  were,  in  1830,118,- 
000,000  francs,  or  $23,600,000 ;  in  1851,  246,000,000  francs, 

*  Bigelow's  Tariff  Question,  p.  38. 

t  Industrie  des  Laines  peigu^es,  p.  135,  et  aeq. 


31 


or  $49,200,000.  The  increase  in  twenty  years  was  110  per 
cent.  While  England  had  doubled  her  exportations,  France 
had  tripled  hers,  besides  supplying  her  domestic  consumption. 
Thus  the  acknowledged  protective  system  of  France  had  ac- 
complished more  for  her  foreign  commerce  than  the  so-called 
free  trade  of  England  had  done  for  British  exterior  con- 
sumption. Assured  by  the  increased  prosperity  of  her  man- 
ufactures, of  the  domestic  consumption  of  all  her  native  wools, 
France,  while  continuing  the  duties  on  her  manufactures,  has 
diminished  the  duty  on  raw  materials.  In  1861,  her  exporta- 
tions of  woollens  amounted  to  188,000,000  francs  ;  in  1862, 
221,000,000  francs;  and,  in  1863,  to  283,000,000  francs,  or 
$56,000,000. 

I  have  been  able  to  obtain  estimates  of  the  number  of  per- 
sons employed  in  only  one  branch  of  the  French  woollen 
manufacture,  that  of  combing  wool.  Mr.  Bernoville*  estimates 
that  France,  in  1851,  employed  constantly  800,000  spindles  in 
the  fabrication  of  combing  wool;  that  each  spindle  produced 
twelve  kilogrammes  of  yarn,  representing  nineteen  kilo- 
grammes of  washed  wool,  worth  at  least  5  francs  25  centimes 
per  kilogramme.  At  that,  the  800,000  spindles  consumed  15,- 
200,000  kilogrammes  (33,431,200  lbs.),  worth,  in  round  num- 
bers, 80,000,000  francs.  He  estimates  that  the  various  ma- 
nipulations which  the  wool  undergoes  in  fabrication,  including 
the  selling,  adds  two  and  one-half  limes  to  the  original  value 
of  the  wool,  making  the  total  cost  of  wool,  and  fabrication  of 
combing  wool,  280,000,000  francs.  The  800,000  spindles  pro- 
duce 9,600,000  kilogrammes  of  yarn,  representing  8,400,000 
fleeces,  of  which  5,800,000  are  produced  by  French  sheep.  It 
is  ascertained,  from  the  statistics  of  M.  Billiet,  that  this  wool, 
from  the  shepherd  to  the  spinner  inclusive,  employs  51,000 
workmen,  who  receive  a  total  salary  of  26,182,976  francs.  It 
is  calculated  that  two  looms  occupy  five  persons,  and  each  wea- 

*  Industrie  des  L  nines  peigndes,  p.  139. 


32 


ver  uses  about  eighty  kilogrammes  of  spun  wool.  The  9,600,- 
000  kilogrammes  give  employment  to  120,000  looms,  which 
gives  the  number  of  300,000  workmen  employed  in  weaving. 
It  is  estimated  that  in  dyeing,  bleaching,  printing,  and  selling, 
20,000  more  persons  are  employed.  Estimating  the  average 
pay  of  each  of  the  320,000  workmen,  exclusive  of  the  spinners, 
at  1  franc  25  centimes  a  day  for  three  hundred  days'  work, 
and  adding  the  salary  included  in  the  spinning,  Mr.  Bernoville 
arrives  at  the  sum  of  146,000,000  francs  distributed  among 
371,000  men,  women,  and  children,  which  would  allow 
393  francs  55  centimes,  or  $78.70  to  each  person.  These 
estimates  furnish  data  by  which  we  may  arrive  at  a  general 
estimate  of  the  number  employed  in  all  the  branches  of  the 
woollen  manufacture.  The  value  of  the  fabrication  of  comb- 
ing wool  was  280,000,000  only  of  her  921,000,000,  the  esti- 
mated value  of  the  whole  fabrication ;  leaving  a  value  of 
641,000,000  in  other  branches.  These  branches,  by  the  rates 
established  in  the  estimates  above  given,  would  employ  849,000 
persons,  making  nearly  a  million  and  a  quarter  as  the  number 
of  persons  directly  employed  in  the  woollen  manufactures  of 
France. 

In  studying  the  characteristics  of  the  French  manufacturers, 
and  the  part  they  have  taken  in  advancing  the  general  pro- 
gress of  the  woollen  industry,  and  in  adding  to  the  means  of 
consumption,  we  observe  that  they  have  not  attained  that 
economy  of  production  which  so  eminently  distinguishes  the 
British  manufacturers.  Supplied  with  abundant  labor,  sup- 
ported by  cheap  sustenance,  the  French  manufacturers  have 
been  content  to  remain  far  behind  the  British  and  Americans 
in  the  substitution  of  machinery  for  human  labor.  But  the 
tendency  of  machinery,  as  they  think,  is  to  give  mediocrity  to 
manufactured  products;  and  the  French  aim  at  the  utmost 
excellence  in  their  works.  The  individual  skill  or  handicraft 
of  the  workman  is  developed  to  the  utmost  extent.     All  ma- 


33 


chinery  is  rejected  which  will  not  surpass  the  manipulations  of 
the  liand.  Spinning,  the  foundation  of  good  textures,  is  car- 
ried by  them  to  the  utmost  perfection.  Yarns,  spun  from 
combed  or  carded  wool  by  the  rival  nations,  exhibited  at  the 
great  London  exposition,  were  carried  ten,  twenty,  and  even 
thirty  numbers  higher  by  French  spinners  with  the  same 
wool.*  They  excel  equally  in  ameliorating  raw  materials,  in 
making  them  softer  and  more  flexible.  The  French,  in  the 
textile  arts,  are  creators;  while  the  English  are  exploiteurs. 
The  one  nation  invents  new  fabrics,  new  combinations  of  old 
materials,  new  styles  and  patterns,  or  what,  in  a  word,  are 
called  French  novelties.  The  other  works  up  these  ideas, 
copies,  transforms,  dilutes,  and,  above  all,  cheapens.  Most 
other  nations  follow  the  English  example,  and  our  own  is  as 
yet  no  exception.  To  specify  the  contributions  of  inventive  or 
creative  genius  of  France  to  the  woollen  industry,  we  must 
class,  first  among  the  machines,  the  Jaquard,  already  referred 
to,  whose  wonderful  products  are  seen  in  all  figured  textures ; 
and  next,  the  machinery  for  combing  wool  and  also  cotton,  of 
Heilman,  of  Mulhouse,  an  invention  which  possesses  interest, 
not  only  on  account  of  its  vast  importance,  but  the  circum- 
stances of  its  origin.  The  most  novel  and  valuable  part  of 
this  machine,  as  stated  by  the  inventor,  which  he  had  long 
unsuccessfully  endeavored  to  obtain,  was  ultimately  accom- 
plished by  carrying  into  mechanical  operation  a  suggestion 
which  occurred  to  him  whilst  watching  his  daughters  combing 
their  hair.  He  was  at  that  time  meditating  on  the  hard  faie 
of  inventors  generally,  and  the  misfortunes  which  befel  their 
families.  This  circumstance,  says  Mr.  Woodcroft,  being  com- 
municated to  Mr.  Elmore,  of  the  Royal  Academy,  was  embod- 
ied by  him  in  a  picture  which  was  exhibited,  and  greatly 
admired,  at  the  Royal  Academy  in  1862. f     We  all  practise  or 

*  Bernoville. 

t  Brief  Biographies  of  Inventors,  &c.,  p.  46. 
5 


34 


use  French  creations  without  suspecting  their  origin.  Before 
1834  the  colors  of  all  fulled  cloths  were  uniform.  At  tliat 
time  Mr.  Bonjean,  of  Sedan,  conceived  the  idea,  to  give  beauty 
to  the  productions  of  his  looms,  of  uniting  in  the  same  stuff 
different  tints  and  figures.  His  thought  was  that  the  domain 
of  production  would  be  as  illimitable  as  that  of  fantasy,  which 
was  the  name  given  to  his  goods.  He  was  the  originator  of  the 
product  and  name  of  fancy  cassimeres,  by  far  the  most  im- 
portant branch  of  our  own  cloth  manufacture.*  The  French, 
already  skilled  in  making  light  gauzes  of  silk,  first  made 
bareges  in  1818 ;  f  a  fabric  with  a  weft  of  wool  and  warp  of 
silk.  The  English  imitated  the  fabric  by  substituting  cotton 
for  silk  in  the  warp.  In  1826,  Mr.  Jourdain  first  produced,  at 
the  establishment  of  Troixvilles,  that  invaluable  fabric,  mouss- 
eline  de  laine,  made  of  fine  wool,  for  printing.  J  In  1831,  the 
manufacture  and  printing  of  this  tissue  was  fully  developed. 
In  1838,  he  also  created  challis,  made  of  a  warp  of  silk  organ- 
zin  and  a  weft  of  fine  wool.  §  In  1833,  first  appeared  at  Paris, 
simultaneously  introduced  by  three  French  houses,  that  fabric 
so  appropriate  for  the  consumption  of  tlie  masses,  the  mousseline 
de  laine,  with  cotton  warps.  The  English  adopted  the  manu- 
facture in  1834-5,  and  it  prevails  in  every  manufacturing 
nation.  This  fabric,  which  is  unquestionably  a  Frencli  idea,|| 
has  been  an  inestimable  blessing.  Its  products  are  counted  by 
millions  of  pieces,  and  it  enables  the  most  humble  female  to 
clothe  herself  more  comfortably  and  becomingly,  and  as  cheap- 
ly, with  wool,  as  she  could  thirty  years  ago  with  cotton.  In 
1858,  plain  bareges  were  introduced,  for  printing.  These  had 
before  been  made  of  colored  threads ;  at  the  same  time,  balso- 
rine,  having  the  effect  of  alternate  fabrics  of  cloth  and  gauze, 
was  created  in  wool  in  imitation  of  a  flaxen  fabric.  ^     The 

*  Randoing.    Industrie  des  Laines  Ibulees,  p.  23. 

t  Bernoville,  p.  179.  t  Bemoville,  p.  186. 

§  Bernoville,  p.  186.  ||  Bemoville,  p.  187. 

t  Bernoville,  p.  188. 


35 


foulards,  with  a  warp  of  silk  and  weft  of  English  combing,  were 
introduced  about  this  time  at  St.  Denis.*  The  fabric,  how- 
ever, most  appreciated  by  female  taste,  and  the  most  unrivalled 
of  modern  woollen  textures,  and  the  only  one  not  degraded  by 
imitation,  is  that  beautiful  material  which  derives  its  name  from 
the  fleece  of  which  it  is  made,  the  French  merino.  This  tissue 
was  first  made  at  Rheims,  in  1801,  by  a  workman  named 
Dauphinot  Pallotan.f  The  invention,  for  which  a  patent  was 
asked,  whether  successfully  or  not  is  not  known,  consisted  sole- 
ly in  the  adaptation  of  a  peculiar  type  of  wool,  and  not  in  the 
fabric.  I  shall  refer  to  this  fabric  in  another  connection,  to  show 
that  the  intelligent  skill  of  the  agriculturalist  is  no  less  import- 
ant than  the  genius  of  the  artisan  in  developing  the  manufac- 
turing prosperity  of  a  nation. 

The  creative  genius  of  the  French  is  more  conspicuous 
in  their  arts  of  design  and  color,  as  applied  to  all  textile 
products.  Tiiere  is  an  unlimited  application  of  these  arts 
and  a  boundless  field  for  novelties,  in  the  modern  use  of 
printed  woollen  goods.  All  the  manufacturers  of  France, 
in  producing  new  styles  of  fabric  or  figure,  nourish  their 
tastes  by  Parisian  ideas,  the  inheritance  of  the  ancient  splen- 
dors of  Versailles.  Says  Mr.  Bernoville  :  "At  Paris,  each  con- 
sumer is  a  judge,  and  becomes  a  guide  to  the  merchant 
and  manufacturer.  The  Parisians  appreciate  only  what  is 
good,  and  consecrate  only  what  is  beautiful.  The  grisette  as 
well  as  tiie  g-rande  dame,  the  artisan  as  well  as  the  dandy,  lias 
received,  and  practises,  without  knowing  it,  the  traditions  of 
art."  J  Although  important  commercial  houses  are  now  estab- 
lished for  the  sale  of  designs  elaborated  in  this  school,  there  is 
no  manufacturer  in  Europe  who  scruples  to  copy  French  pat- 
terns. We  have  even  so  framed  our  patent  laws  that,  while 
protecting  all  other  foreign  works  of  invention,  we  might  appro- 

*  Beraoville,  p.  185.  t  Bernoville,  p.  195.  t  Bernoville,  p.  175. 


36 


priate  with  impunity  the  productions  of  the  Parisian  pencil 
and  pallet. 

Thus,  by  importation  as  well  as  imitation,  all  over  the  world, 
the  true  lovers  of  the  beautiful,  as  well  as  *'  the  sophists,  econo- 
mists, and  calculators,"  whose  advent,  upon  the  fall  of  Maria 
Antoinette,  is  so  pathetically  lamented  by  Burke,*  acknowledge 
France,  so  gracefully  symbolized  by  Eugdnie,  the  empress  of 
taste  and  fashion. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  review  the  woollen  industries  of  the 
other  manufacturing  countries  of  Europe,  and  will  confine 
myself  to  a  brief  notice  of  four  other  nations,  the  most  dis- 
tinguished for  their  resistance  to  the  commercial  policy  of 
England.  In  the  reports  of  the  Bradford  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce for  1864-5,  kindly  sent  me  by  our  consul  at  Sheffield, 
Mr.  Abbott,  who  has  charge  also  of  the  vice-consulates  of  Brad- 
ford, Leeds,  and  Huddersfield,  I  find  bitter  complaints  of  the 
tariff  regulations  of  Austria,  Sweden,  Spain,  and  Russia,  as 
affecting,  most  injuriously,  the  woollen  trade  of  Bradford.  The 
Austrian  tariff  is  spoken  of  as  presenting  "  features  of  the 
most  objectionable  character,"  while  "  the  duties  are  almost 
prohibitory,  and  unjust  to  England."  The  Swedish  tariff  is 
referred  to  as  having  "  the  unfortunate  distinction  of  disputing 
with  Spain  the  debatable  honor  of  being  the  highest  in  the 
world,  the  Russian  alone  excepted."  Of  Russia,  it  is  said, 
*'  the  importation  of  manufactured  tissues  is  practically  pre- 
vented by  a  scale  of  duties  higher  than  any  in  the  world  ;" 
and  that  the  value  of  only  X46,258  of  British  woollens  and 
Worsteds  were  exported  to  that  country  in  1862.  It  is  a  mat- 
ter of  no  little  interest  to  us  to  know  the  manufacturing  con- 
dition of  the  nations  which  have  made  such  declarations  of 
independence. 


*  "But  the  age  of  chivalry  is  gone;  that  of  sophisters,  econoinistR,and  calculators, 
have  succeedeH,  and  the  glory  of  Europe  is  extinguished  forever."  —  Reflections  on  the 
Revolution  in  France.     London,  1791,  p.  60. 


37 


Austria  consumes  about  70,000,000  pounds  of  wool  per  year, 
and  its  annual  production  of  woollen  fabrics  amounts  to  about 
$50,000,000  per  year.  It  supplies  its  own  population,  and 
exports  to  the  Levant,  Asia,  the  United  States,  and  even  China. 
Its  manufactures  of  woollens  were  stimulated,  first,  by  almost 
absolute  prohibition,  and  have  been  since  encouraged  by  duties 
highly  prohibitory.  What  is  the  condition  of  the  manufacture 
thus  aided  by  the  national  favor  ?  Let  the  disinterested  testi- 
mony of  an  English  expert  answer.  The  reporter  on  the  class 
of  woollens,  in  tlie  London  Exhibition  of  1862,  says:  "  There  is 
no  inland  country  in  Europe  vi^hich  has  made  so  much  pro- 
gress in  woollen  manufactures  during  the  last  ten  or  twelve 
years  as  Austria.  It  has  not  only  maintained  and  improved 
its  reputation  for  fine  plain  woollens,  doeskins,  heavy  coatings, 
&c.,  but  has  made  wonderful  advances  in  fancy  trouserings. 
They  are  no  longer  imitations  of  French,  English,  or  otlier 
designs,  but  display  an  originality  highly  creditable  to  the 
manufacturer.  Their  woollen  dyeing  is  the  best  in  the  whole 
exposition.  The  whites,  scarlets,  oranges,  and  other  shades, 
possess  a  clearness,  richness,  and  fulness  of  color,  not  attained 
by  any  other  country." 

Sweden,  although  enjoying  few  advantages  of  soil,  climate, 
and  position,  owes  to  the  policy  which  the  Bradford  merchant 
calls  "  a  debatable  honor,"  her  present  honorable  place  in  the 
community  of  nations.  Her  population  has  steadily  advanced. 
Her  importation  of  foreign  luxuries  of  food  has  greatly  in- 
creased. Her  agriculture  has  been  developed.  In  the  ten 
years  ending  in  1787,  her  importation  of  grain  had  been  196,- 
000,000  pounds.  In  the  decade  ending  in  1853,  it  was  but 
34,000,000,  while  the  population  had  almost  doubled.  Lands 
have  increased  in  value,  property  is  divided,  a  taste  for  litera- 
ture is  extending,  and  the  people  have  secured  political  repre- 
sentation. In  the  short  space  of  thirteen  years  tlie  iron  manu- 
facture had  nearly  doubled.*     The  manufacture  of  woollens  in 

*  Carey,  Miinunl  of  Social  Science,  p.  246. 


38 


the  large  establishments  has  been  so  successful  that  it  is  said 
that  "  the  worsted  and  mixed  fabrics  are  such  exact  imitations 
of  Bradford  goods  tliat  the  most  acute  judges  can  scarcely  dis- 
tinguish tlie  difference."  The  manufacture  of  woollen  cloth 
is  found  everywhere  throughout  the  country  in  the  houses  of 
the  people.  Compare  the  condition  of  the  people  of  Sweden, 
under  their  system  of  industrial  independence,  with  that  of 
the  population  of  Ireland,  or  of  Turkey,  where  men,  com- 
pelled to  abandon  weaving  and  spinning  and  gathering  mul- 
berry leaves  and  feeding  silk  worms,  can  earn  but  five  cents  a 
day,*  to  which  condition  the  policy  of  the  Bradford  merchant 
would  reduce  them.  "  The  people  of  Sweden,"  says  a  travel- 
ler quoted  by  Mr.  Carey,  "  seem  to  unite,  on  a  small  scale,  all 
the  advantages  of  a  manufacturing  and  agricultural  population 
more  fully  than  in  any  district  I  have  ever  seen.  The  men  do 
the  farm  business,  while  the  women  drive  a  not  less  profitable 
branch  of  industry.  There  is  full  employment,  at  the  loom  or 
in  spinning,  for  the  old  and  young  of  the  female  sex.  Ser- 
vants are  no  burden.  ABout  the  houses  there  is  all  the  neat- 
ness of  a  thriving  manufacturing,  and  the  abundance  of  an 
agricultural  population.  The  table-linen,  laid  down  even  for 
your  glass  of  milk  and  piece  of  bread,  is  always  clean ;  the 
beds  and  sheets  are  always  nice  and  white.  Everybody  is  well 
clad,  for  their  manufacturing,  like  their  farming,  is  for  their 
own  use  first,  and  the  surplus  only  as  a  secondary  object,  for 
sale  ;  and  from  the  number  of  little  nick-nacks  in  their  house- 
holds, the  good  tables  and  chairs,  window-curtains  and  blinds 
(which  no  hut  is  without),  clocks,  fine  bedding,  papered  rooms, 
and  a  few  books,  it  is  evident  that  they  lay  out  their  winnings 
on  their  own  comfort,  and  that  these  are  not  on  a  low  scale  of 
social  well-being." 

Spain,  which  also  enjoys  "the  unfortunate  distinction"  of  pro- 

*  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Patents  for  1861:  Agriculture,  p.  12. 


39 


tecting  her  industry,  was  driven  to  this  policy  hy  seeing,  under 
her  colonial  system,  her  home  industry  abandoned,  her  artisans 
and  farmers  dying  out,  her  towns  and  cities  decaying,  and  her 
lands  monopolized  by  the  nobles  and  the  church.  Fortunately 
she  lost  her  colonies,  and  was  compelled  to  look  at  home.  Her 
agriculture,  manufactures,  and  commerce,  have  doubled  in  the 
last  twenty-five  years.  Provided  with  that  wonderful  breed  of 
sheep  which  has  been  the  great  ameliorator  of  most  of  the 
flocks  in  the  world,  and  which,  according  to  the  statement  of 
Her  Catholic  Majesty's  Secretary  of  State  in  1854,  still  sur- 
vives in  its  original  perfection,*  Spain  has  made  remarkable 
progress  in  her  woollen  manufactures,  and  will  not  be  likely  to 
abandon  the  system  which  sustains  them  when  even  English 
judges  say  of  them  as  follows :  "  Upon  the  whole,  it  is  evident 
that  Spain  now  possesses  manufacturers  of  great  enterprise, 
artisans  of  first-rate  skill,  and  machinery  of  the  best  and  most 
approved  kinds.  The  progress  made  by  the  Spanish  woollen 
manufacturers  since  1851,  is  of  a  most  striking  character,  dis- 
playing results  which  bring  their  productions  almost  on  a  par 
with  the  most  advanced  manufacturers  of  any  country.  The 
printing  of  their  dyes,  and  clearness  and  beauty  of  their 
blended  colors,  are  equal  to  those  of  France,  Austria,  and  the 
United  Kingdom. f 

Russia,  which  wears  the  crown  of" debatable  honor"  in  Eng- 
lish eyes,  was,  fifty  years  ago,  merely  an  agricultural  nation. 
Manufactures  began  to  spring  up  under  the  continental  sys- 
tem, but  were  crushed  by  the  policy  of  Alexander,  who,  at  the 
close  of  the  war,  gave  free  admission  to  the  goods  of  his  late 
ally.  In  1824,  Count  Nesselrode  established  the  system  which 
achieved  the  industrial  independence  of  Russia.  Tliat  empire 
has  now  45,000,000  sheep,  of  which  18,000,000  are  merinos. 
In  1849,  the  woollen   industry  employed  495,000  workmen, 

*  Ohio  Agricultural  Report,  1862,  p.  498. 

t  International  Exhibition  of  1862.    Reports  of  Juries,  Class  21. 


40 


distributed  in  9,172  establishments ;  besides  employing  a  vast 
number  in  making  carpets  and  common  stuffs  in  the  cottages 
of  the  peasantry.  It  supplies  almost  entirely  the  domestic 
consumption,  including  clothing  for  her  vast  army,  none  of 
which  was  made  in  the  empire  before  1824.  In  cloths  alone 
the  production  is  more  than  $20,000,000.  Russia  exports  even 
more  woollen  goods  than  she  imports.  In  1850,  she  imported 
woollen  goods  of  the  value  of  $1,000,000,  and  exported  to  the 
amount  of  over  $2,500,000,  principally  to  China  and  Central 
Asia.*  The  people  of  Russia,  employed  by  this  and  kindred 
manufactures,  consume  at  home  the  enormous  products  of 
their  agriculture.  Of  the  1,600,000,000  bushels  of  corn,  which 
is  the  product  of  their  soil,  they  export  only  15,000,000,  less 
than  one  per  cent  of  the  total  cereal  product.  Tlie  question 
arises.  Can  manufactures,  so  completely  exempted  from  foreign 
competition,  attain  that  excellence  which  is  necessary  for  true 
industrial  progress  ?  Let  the  English  judges  again  answer. 
They  say,  in  1861,  "  Those  who  remember  the  woollen  goods 
exhibited  from  Russia,  in  1851,  and  compare  them  with  the 
goods  exhibited  now,  cannot  fail  to  be  struck  with  the  remark- 
able progress  made  in  every  branch  of  manufacture,  cloths, 
beavers,  fancy  cassimeres,  mixed  fabrics,  and  shawls,  <fec. ;  all 
bear  evidence  of  the  improvement,  and  show  a  degree  of  excel- 
lence, which,  as  regards  make  and  finish,  place  the  production 
of  Russia  on  a  par  with  some  of  the  oldest  manufacturing 
countries."  f 

The  present  manufacturing  prosperity  of  these,  as  well  as 
other  industrial  States  of  continental  Europe,  naturally  sug- 
gests this  inquiry,  What  would  have  been  the  future  indus- 
trial condition  of  continental  Europe,  if,  at  the  time  when 
peace  restored  the  nations  to  labor,  the  textile  manufactures 
had  been  left  to  their  own  free  course,  and  no  legislation  had 

•  Bernoville,  Industrie  des  Laines  peign^es,  p.  90,  et  seq. 

t  International  Exhibition  of  1862.    Reports  of  Juries,  Class  21. 


41 


intervened  to  regulate  their  progress?  Can  there  be  any 
doubt  that  they  would  have  become  the  exchisive  occupation 
of  England  ?  Alone  in  the  possession  of  steam  power  and 
machinery  ;  alone  provided  with  ships  and  means  of  transport ; 
alone  endowed,  through  her  stable  legislation,  with  capital  to 
vivify  her  natural  wealth,  she  had  absolute  command  of  the 
markets  of  the  continent.  The  question  was  presented  to 
the  continental  nations,  whether  they  should  accept  the  cheap 
tissues  of  England,  or,  at  some  sacrifices,  repel  them,  to  appro- 
priate to  themselves  the  labor  and  profit  of  their  production. 
The  latter  course  was  successively  adopted,  with  some  modifi- 
cations, by  each  of  the  continental  nations;  and  with  what 
results  to  their  own  wealth,  and  the  industrial  progress  and 
comfort  of  the  world !  Instead  of  a  single  workshop,  Europe 
has  the  workshops  of  France,  Russia,  Austria,  Prussia,*  Bel- 
gium, Sweden,  Denmark,  Spain,  each  clothing  its  own  people 
with  substantial  fabrics ;  each  developing  its  own  creative 
genius  and  peculiar  resources ;  each  contributing  to  substitute 
the  excellence  of  competition  for  the  mediocrity  of  monopoly ; 
each  adding  to  the  progress  of  the  arts  and  the  wealth  and 
comfort  of  mankind. 

It  remains  for  me  now  to  illustrate  the  national  importance 
of  the  wool  manufacture  by  the  industry  of  our  own  country. 
I  shall  not  attempt  to  describe  the  successive  steps  of  the  pro- 
gress by  which  this  manufacture  has  attained  its  present  posi- 
tion. I  can  add  nothing  which  is  not  already  familiar  to  the 
members  of  this  Association,  or  which  may  not  be  found  in  easily 
accessible  sources  of  information.  The  most  striking  feature  in 
the  brief  history  of  our  manufacture  is  its  instability.     As  in 


*  "  The  trade  of  Germany  at  the  beginning  of  the  century  was  hides,  tallow,  flax,  and 
wool,  ex]>orted  for  cloth  and  cutlery  in  return ;  and  Bonaparte  could  make  their  territory 
his  fighting-ground.  Since  the  battle  of  Waterloo  they  have  l>een  making  their  ovm 
cloths  and  cutlery;  and  his  nephew,  with  more  resources  and  stronger  alliances,  was 
obliged  to  keep  within  the  line  of  war  with  Austria  which  the  rest  of  Germany  prescribed." 
Dr.  Elder,  The  VTestem  States,  their  Pursuits  and  Policy,  p.  20. 

6 


42 


the  continental  states  of  Europe  manufactures  were  called  into 
being  by  their  respective  governments,  the  very  existence  of  the 
woollen  industry  in  this  country  depended  upon  the  national 
legislation,  or  such  a  state  of  national  affairs  as  would  restrain 
the  competition  of  the  older  and  well-established  foreign  manu- 
factures. By  the  war  of  1812,  which  accomplished  for  this 
country  what  the  continental  blockade  did  for  France,  the  wool- 
len manufacture  was  brought  up  from  a  product  of  only 
4,000,000  in  1810  to  19,000,000  in  1815 ;  only  to  be  over- 
whelmed by  the  enormous  importation,  at  the  close  of  the  war, 
of  70,000,000  in  woollens  and  cottons  at  an  ad  valorem  duty 
of  5  per  cent.*  Reviving  in  1816,  by  the  aid  of  a  duty  of  25  per 
cent,  and  tlie  free  admission  of  raw  material,  the  interest  was 
depressed  again  in  1820,  by  the  fall  of  the  duty  to  20  per  cent. 
The  manufacturers  were  stimulated  to  new  enterprises  by  the 
increased  duty  of  33^  per  cent  established  after  June,  1825,  and 
by  the  still  increased  rates  of  the  tariff  of  1827 ;  but  the  ex- 
pected benefits  were  neutralized  by  the  high  duties  placed 
upon  the  raw  material.  The  characteristic  instability  was 
continued  under  the  biennial  reductions  of  the  compromise 
policy  of  1832.  The  stimulus  of  the  favorable  tariff  of  1842 
was  followed  by  the  crushing  influence  of  the  ad  valorem 
tariff  of  1846,  which,  placing  an  equal  duty  upon  wool  and  its 
manufactures,  and  in  some  cases  a  higher  duty  upon  the 
former,  gave  no  protection,  or  discriminated  against  American 
fabrics.  The  effect  of  this  measure  was  the  destruction  of 
American  broadcloths,  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  extinguish- 
ment of  our  Saxony  sheep.  The  tariff  of  1857  was  productive 
of  some  benefit  by  enlarging  the  free  list.  Finally,  the  so-called 
Morill  tariff"  of  1861,  since  modified  by  the  law  of  1864, 
gave,  not  by  increasing  the  duty,  but  by  establishing  just  rela- 
tions between  the  duties  on  manufactures  and  raw  material,  the 

*  At  this  time,  full-blooded  merinos  sold  for  one  dollar  apiece.    Bucks  had  been  sold 
during  the  war  for  a  thousand  dollars  apiece.    Randall's  Practical  Shepherd,  p.  24. 


43 


first  encouragement  that  our  industry  might  be  established 
upon  a  permanent  basis,  and  become  here  what  it  is  elsewhere, 
a  pillar  of  national  prosperity.  Notwithstanding  the  legisla- 
tion, often  unfriendly  and  always  uncertain,  the  woollen  manu- 
facture had  become  established  in  1860  as  a  great  industrial 
power,  and,  by  the  amount,  variety,  and  excellence  of  its  pro- 
ducts, had  proved  itself  eminently  worthy  of  national  favor. 

I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Kennedy,  the  late  admirable  Superin- 
tendent of  the  Census  of  1860,  for  proof-sheets  of  the  chapters 
on  "  woollen "  and  "  worsted  goods "  of  the  forthcoming 
volume  of  the  Census  upon  "Manufactures;"  a  work  which, 
while  passing  through  the  press,  has  been  most  cruelly  taken 
from  the  hands  of  the  one  who  conceived  and  executed  it. 
The  total  values  of  the  several  manufactures  of  wool  in  1860 
were  as  follows :  — 

Carpets $7,857,636 

Hosiery 7,280,606 

Wool-carding 2,403,512 

Worsted  Goods 3,701,378 

Woollen  Goods  (including  yarns,  blankets, 

and  shawls) 61,895,217 

Total #83,138,349 

"  On  the  first  of  June,  1860,  the  number  of  establishments 
employed  on  woollen  goods,  exclusive  of  worsted  dress  goods, 
was  1,260.  They  represented  a  capital  of  $30,862,654,  and 
consumed  83,608,468  pounds  of  wool,  and  15,200,061  pounds 
of  cotton,  costing,  with  all  other  materials,  $36,586,887.  They 
worked  3,209  sets  of  machinery.  They  gave  employment  to 
24,841  male  and  16,519  female  hands,  or  41,360  persons,  whose 
annual  wages  cost  $9,808,254.  The  aggregate  value  of  the 
product  amounted  to  $61,895,217." 

"  With  a  decrease  of  557  in  the  number  of  establishments,  as 
compared  with  the  census  of  1850,  doubtless  in  part  occasioned 
by  a  more  complete  exclusion  from  the  recent  tables  of  such 


u 


accessory  and  kindred  branches  as  wool-carding  and  worsted 
mills,  the  aggregates  show  an  increase  of  $4,791,112,  or  18-3 
per  cent  in  capital  invested  ;  $11,674,432,  or  46*8  per  cent  in 
the  expenditure  for  raw  materials ;  6,465,  or  18*5  per  cent 
in  the  number  of  hands ;  and  $2,640,354,  or  36-8  per  cent  in 
the  annual  cost  of  wages,  while  the  aggregate  value  of  the 
manufactured  product  appreciated  $18,352,929,  or  42-14  per 
cent  upon  the  returns  of  1850.  The  gross  proceeds  of  the 
manufacture,  after  deducting  the  cost  of  materials  and  labor, 
was  $15,527,367,  or  upwards  of  fifty  per  cent  upon  the  capital 
employed,  to  cover  the  interest  on  capital,  the  wear  and  tear  of 
machinery,  and  various  incidental  expenses." 

"  The  consumption  of  wool  amounted  to  an  average  of  2*61 
pounds  j9er  capita  for  the  entire  population  of  the  Union.  It 
was  in  the  proportion  of  five  and  one-half  pounds  to  every 
pound  of  cotton  used  in  the  business.  The  quantity  of  cloth 
manufactured  exceeded  the  amount  returned  in  1850  by  42,- 
691,210  yards,  or  fifty-two  per  cent,  and  the  weight  of  yarn  was 
2,106,870  pounds,  or  nearly  fifty  per  cent  greater  than  in  that 
year.  The  product  in  cloth  was  equivalent  to  nearly  four 
yards  to  each  inhabitant  of  the  Union,  and  in  value  averaged 
nearly  two  dollars  ($1.97)  per  capita.  The  average  annual 
wages  of  each  operative  was  $237,  or  $32  greater  than  in  1850." 
(Compare  this  with  the  annual  wages  of  the  French  workman, 
$78.70 !) 

According  to  the  same  report,  the  worsted  manufacturers  had 
in  1860  an  invested  capital  of  $3,460,000.  "  They  employed  1 10 
sets  of  cards,  and  1,101  male  and  1,277  female  hands,  whose 
aggregate  yearly  wages  amounted  to  $488,736.  The  raw  ma- 
terials were  3,000,000  pounds  of  wool,  worth  $1,554,000; 
1,653,000  pounds  of  cotton,  costing  $196,640,  besides  madder, 
and  other  dye-stuffs,  coal,  oil,  &c.,  costing  altogether  $2,767,- 
700.  The  cost  of  wool  was  51  cents,  and  of  cotton  11-8  cents 
a  pound.  The  aggregate  product  was  22,500,000  yards,  valued 
at  $3,201,378." 


45 


Keeping  in  mind  the  total  value  of  our  manufactures  of 
wool  in  1860,  according  to  the  census  returns,  we  have  some 
means  of  forming  an  estimate  of  the  progress  of  our  manufac- 
tures since  that  period,  from  the  reports  of  the  Internal 
Revenue  for  1864.  From  the  amount  of  internal  revenue  paid 
upon  those  classes  of  manufactures  of  wool  enumerated  at 
three  per  cent,  I  have  calculated  the  total  value  upon  which 
that  revenue  was  paid  in  each  State.  The  aggregate  is  $121,- 
868,250.33.  It  will  scarcely  be  suspected  that  the  value  has 
been  exaggerated.     The  value  in  each  State  is  as  follows :  — 

Massachusetts $40,603,651.00 

Pennsylvania 16,599,713.33 

Connecticut 15,866,641.00 

New  York 13,977,775.00 

Khode  Island 10,892,700.33 

New  Hampshire 9,079,677.00 

Vermont 3,708,721.67 

New  Jersey 2,778,084.00 

Maine 2,476,483.67 

Ohio 1,400,877.67 

Indiana 558,615.33 

Delaware 548,134.67 

California 538,956.00 

Maryland      .     .     .' 451,912.00 

Kentucky 359,905.00 

Illinois 359,084.33 

Michigan 151,848.33 

Oregon 128,620.67 

Iowa 118,305.33 

Missouri 75,344.00 

Wisconsin 105,317.67 

West  Virginia 63,753.00 

Kansas 14,947.67 

Minnesota 9,146.00 

Nebraska  Territory 45.65 

A  great  progress  is  indicated  by  the  returns  made  to  the 
office  in  answer  to  about  1,700  circulars  sent  out.     Tlie  total 


46 


number  of  sets  in  1860,  according  to  the  census,  was  3,319 ; 
931  returns  received  at  the  oflBce  of  the  Association  on  the  first 
of  September,*  1865,  reported  4,073  sets  of  cards,  consuming 
2,275,855  pounds  weekly  of  scoured  wool,  of  which  1,636,821 
is  domestic,  and  639,034  is  foreign ;  the  weekly  average  per 
set  being  559  pounds.  The  census  returns  of  1860  were  com- 
plete. According  to  our  list  608  mills  remain  to  be  heard 
from.  Returns  are  coming  in  daily,  and  it  is  believed  the 
number  of  sets  will  not  fall  short  of  five  thousand. 

Another  indication  of  progress  is  the  greatly  increased  con- 
sumption of  wool.  The  total  amount  of  wool  produced  in  the 
United  States  in  1860,  according  to  the  census,  was  60,264,913 
pounds,  all  of  which  was  consumed  in  our  manufactures.  The 
amount  imported  in  that  yiear,  according  to  the  report  of 
Messrs.  Bond  and  Livermore,  was  32,371,719  pounds,!  making 
the  total  amount  consumed  92,636,632  pounds.  The  home 
product  of  1864  is  estimated,  by  the  Department  of  Agricul- 
ture, at  not  less  than  80,000,000  pounds. J  The  amount  im- 
ported was  72,371,503  pounds.§  Total,  152,371,503  pounds, 
an  increase  of  59,734,871  pounds,  or  sixty-one  per  cent. 

Not  the  least  interesting  result,  which  is  at  the  same  time 
the  cause  and  effect  of  the  increase  of  our  woollen  manufac- 
ture, is  one  eminently  national ;  viz.,  that  we  have  been  able  to 
clothe  our  vast  army  with  our  own  fabrics,  and  by  only  the 
national  expansion  of  our  industry.  By  our  looms  and  sew- 
ing-machines we  furnished,  in  one  year,  not  less  than  35,174,- 
608  garments. II  Mr.  Bond,  chairman  of  our  "  Committee  on 
Raw  Materials,"  estimates,  from  official  reports  received  from 
the  Quartermaster-General  of  the  United  States  of  the  quan- 


*  The  Table  in  the  Appendix  contains  the  aggregate  results  up  to  Oct.  25th,  1863. 
t  Wool  Report  to  the  Boston  Board  of  Trade  for  1864,  by  George  William  Bond  and 
George  Livermore,  p.  8. 

I  Monthly  Report  of  the  Agricultural  Department  for  January,  1865,  p.  22. 
§  Report  of  Messrs.  Bond  and  Livermore  for  1864,  p.  8. 

II  Report  of  Messrs.  Bond  and  Livermore  for  1864,  p.  7. 


47 


tity  of  woollen  goods  purchased  for  the  army  in  1862  and  1863, 
that  the  quantity  of  wool  consumed  in  our  mills  for  army  use 
was,  in  — 

1862 51,400,000  lbs. 

1863 61,300,000    „ 

1864,  no  returns,  say 61,300,000    „ 

To  this  must  be  added  the  consumption  for  the  navy,  and 
for  cartridges,  and  the  total  cannot  vary  much  from  200,000,- 
000. 

Compare  this  with  the  condition  of  the  country  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  war  of  1812,  when  the  Secretary  of  War 
was  compelled  to  ask  Congress  for  permission  to  import  5,000 
blankets  for  the  supply  of  the  Indians.* 

This  is  but  one  of  the  many  illustrations  which  the  war  has 
furnished  of  the  great  truth  of  political  economy,  that  a  nation 
is  powerful  and  independent,  just  in  proportion  as  it  cultivates 
a  variety  of  industry  in  its  people. 

"  The  war  and  its  incidents,"  says  Dr.  Elder,f  "  shed  a  flood 
of  light  upon  the  effect  of  a  well-secured  home  consumption 
for  agricultural  products  of  every  kind,  of  which  the  wool- 
growing  interest  is  an  example.  In  the  ten  years  before  the 
rebellion,  the  sheep  of  Pennsylvania  had  decreased  12  per 
cent  in  number.  In  May,  1864,  the  Agricultural  Bureau 
reports  an  increase  of  76  per  cent  in  four  years.  In 
Illinois,  they  had  fallen  off  in  the  last  census  decade  14 
per  cent.  In  the  first  two  years  of  the  war,  according  to  the 
report  of  the  county  assessors,  they  had  increased  from  769,- 
135  to  1,206,695,  and  the  editor  of  the  Chicago  "  Tribune  " 
estimates  the  number  at  3,000,000  at  the  close  of  the  year 
1864,  an  increase  of  two  hundred  and  ninety  per  cent  in  four 
years.    This  immense  advance  is  owing  simply  to  a  protective 


*  Pamphlet  entitled  Free  Trade  in  Raw  Materials  considered  in  its  Effect  upon  all 
Classes  of  the  People.    New  York,  1855,  p.  14. 

t  The  Western  States,  their  Pursuits  and  Policy,  p.  22. 


48 


tariff,  aided  by  the  high  rate  of  foreign  exchange  and  absolute 
possession  of  the  home  market." 

I  shall  not  enlarge  further  upon  the  American  woollen 
industry.  It  may  appear  that  I  have  not  done  it  justice.  It 
would  have  afforded  me  satisfaction  to  give,  from  original 
sources,  special  details  of  our  manufacture  ;  to  enumerate  the 
fabrics  in  wliich  we  excel ;  to  specify  the  inventions  which  we 
have  contributed ;  to  do  honor  to  the  great  men  whose  genius 
and  enterprise  have  built  up  the  pillars  of  our  industry ;  to 
exhibit  its  peculiar  social  and  economic  relations  in  this  coun- 
try ;  in  a  word,  to  contribute  facts  from  our  manufacture  to 
serve  to  illustrate  the  general  progress  of  the  arts.  But  the 
experience  and  observation  of  many  years,  instead  of  a  few 
months,  are  necessary  for  such  a  work.  It  can  be  done, 
indeed,  by  no  one  man.  Each  one  of  you,  gentlemen,  must 
spare  time  and  thought  to  contribute  materials  for  such  a  work 
as  shall  be  a  worthy  record  and  monument  of  your  labors. 
In  this  way  you  will  subserve  the  highest  object  of  our  Associ- 
ation. 

But  the  time  has  not  yet  come  for  the  woollen  manufacture 
to  vaunt  of  its  achievements.  Its  career  has  but  commenced. 
Its  aim  is  nothing  less  than  to  clothe  the  American  people  with 
indigenous  fabrics.  In  twenty  years  preceding  1862,  we  im- 
ported foreign  woollen  manufactures  of  the  value  of  8429,422,- 
951,  —  an  average  of  upwards  of  19,000,000  a  year.  To 
displace  the  foreign  manufacture,  and  supply  a  population  of 
35,000,000,  to  be  doubled  in  thirty  more  years,  —  consuming 
more  woollen  goods  than  the  same  number  of  any  people 
in  the  world,  —  a  field  for  gigantic  enterprise  is  opened  to  the 
American  manufacturer.  This  consideration  leads  to  the 
second  branch  of  my  subject:  —  The  means  of  developing  the 
woollen  manufacture. 

The  requisite  above  all  others  necessary  for  the  development 
of  our  manufacture,  is  a  sufficient  and  diversified  supply  of  the 


49 


raw  material,  —  wool.  For  this  our  main  dependence  must 
always  be  upon  our  own  agriculture.  An  instinctive  senti- 
ment of  patriotism  leads  every  consumer  to  prefer  a  home 
product,  if  it  will  suit  his  purpose  equally  well  with  a  foreign 
product.  It  is  for  the  interest  of  the  consumer  to  buy  at 
home ;  he  saves  commissions,  exchanges,  transportation.  He 
can  select  exactly  what  he  wants,  and  he  can  sell  his  own  pro- 
ducts where  he  buys.  The  statistics  collected  by  the  Associa- 
tion show  that  the  vast  majority  of  the  manufacturers  of  the 
country  use  only  domestic  wool.  Of  4073  sets,  2171  are  em- 
ployed wholly  upon  domestic  wool.  Of  931  mills,  767  use 
domestic  wool ;  while  only  46  mills  in  the  whole  country  use 
foreign  wool  alone. 

So  absolute  is  the  dependence  of  the  manufacturer  of  each 
nation  upon  the  wool-growers  of  his  own  country,  that  the 
characteristic  features  of  the  manufactures  of  different  nations 
have  been  impressed  by  the  peculiar  conditions  of  their  agri- 
culture. I  will  cite  some  examples,  which  will  serve  at  the 
same  time  to  show  the  direction  towards  which  it  is  desirable 
our  own  agriculture  should  tend. 

The  sheep  of  England  at  an  early  period  were  divided  into 
two  distinctly  marked  classes.  The  one  class,  thriving  upon 
the  dry  uplands,  produced  a  short  wool,  adapted  solely  for 
making  felted  cloths,  called  clothing  wool.  Of  this  class,  the 
original  Southdown  was  a  type.  The  other  class,  of  greater 
size,  flourishing  upon  the  rich  moist  plains,  produced  wool 
characterized  by  great  length,  strength,  transparency,  and  the 
little  degree  in  which  it  possessed  the  felting  property.  This 
wool,  fitted  for  making  serges  and  stuff-goods,  was  called  comb- 
ing wool,  from  the  instrument  used  to  make  the  fibres  straight 
and  parallel  preparatory  to  spinning.  The  type  of  this  class 
was  the  Leicester  sheep.  In  raising  sheep  of  both  kinds,  the 
primary  object  anciently  was,  the  product  of  wool ;  tiie  mutton 
being  merely  accessory. 

7 


50 


Under  the  old  system  of  pasturage,  it  was  found  that  but  a 
given  number  of  sheep  could  be  kept  on  a  certain  space  of 
ground  ;  and,  throughout  a  portion  of  the  year,  they  were  defi- 
cient in  nourishment.  Towards  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  the  culture  of  turnips  was  introduced  from  Holland 
to  England,  with  the  financial  and  political  institutions  brought 
over  by  William  III.  Under  the  new  system  of  agriculture, 
the  artificial  or  turnip  husbandry,  a  regular  supply  of  food  was 
provided  for  each  season  of  the  year,  and  double  or  treble  the 
number  of  sheep  could  be  kept  upon  the  same  land.  The  agri- 
culturalists of  England  then  began  to  perceive  that  the  meat 
of  the  sheep  was  a  more  important  source  of  profit  than  the 
wool,  and  that  tlie  wool  must  be  the  accessory.  The  revolu- 
tion, which  established  the  superiority  of  meat  over  wool,  was 
principally  due  to  Bakewell,  of  Dishley,  to  whom  England 
owes  hardly  less  than  to  Watt  and  Arkwright.  Before  his  day, 
the  English  sheep  were  not  fit  for  the  butcher  till  about  four 
or  five  years  old.  He  conceived  that  if  it  were  possible  to 
bring  sheep  to  their  full  development  before  that  age,  —  to 
make  them  fit  for  being  killed  at  two  years  old,  for  example, — 
the  produce  of  the  flocks  by  this  means  would  be  doubled.  To 
accomplish  this,  he  applied  to  the  old  Leicester  sheep  of  his 
neighborhood  what  is  now  the  well  known  principle  of  selec- 
tion in  breeding,  but  which  may  be  said  to  have  originated  in 
his  brilliant  experiments.  So  complete  was  his  success,  that 
the  breed  obtained  by  him,  called  the  "  New  Leicester,"  is  un- 
rivalled in  the  world  for  precocity,  produces  animals  which 
may  be  fattened  as  early  as  one  year  old,  and,  in  every  case,  have 
reached  their  full  growtli  before  the  end  of  the  second  year. 
To  this  invaluable  quality  is  added  a  perfection  of  shape  which 
renders  them  more  fleshy  and  heavier  for  tlieir  size  than  any 
known  breed.  Bakewell  himself  was  not  wanting  in  remunera- 
tion for  his  labors.  So  great  was  the  appreciation  of  his  new 
flocks,  that  he  let  his  rams  for  one  season  for  the  enormous 


51 


sum  of  six  thousand  guineas.  The  "  New  Leicester,"  in  time, 
came  to  be  the  most  numerous  and  widely  extended  breed 
in  all  England.  In  many  districts,  they  displaced  the  short- 
wool  breeds  ;  in  others  modified  them.  The  extension  of  this 
breed  gave  preponderance  to  the  production  of  the  long  wool 
with  which  it  was  clothed.  The  great  value  of  Bakewell's  labors 
consisted,  not  only  in  contributing  a  new  race  realizing  the 
maximum  of  precocity  and  return,  when  placed  on  suitable 
lands,  but  in  pointing  out  the  means  by  which  other  indige- 
nous races  might  be  improved.  The  ancient  race  of  the  Downs, 
adapted  for  the  highlands  where  the  "  New  Leicester "  did 
not  thrive,  originally  producing  short  clothing-wool,  was  for- 
merly of  small  size,  and  yielded  but  little  meat,  and  would 
seldom  fatten  until  four  years  old.  By  a  careful  selection  of 
breeders,  and  the  good  winter  regimen  which  the  turnip  hus- 
bandry gives,  the  English  breeders  caused  the  Southdown  to 
become  the  rival  of  the  "  New  Leicester  "  in  early  development 
and  perfection  of  shape.  They  fatten  generally  when  about 
two  years  old,  and  are  sold  after  the  second  clip.  But  a  change 
was  also  effected  in  the  character  of  the  fleece,  which  the  far- 
mers at  first  refused  to  believe.  It  lost  the  character  of  a 
clothing-wool.  It  became  longer  and  coarser.  As  Mr.  Youatt 
says,  —  "  That  which  was  once  a  carding,  had  become  a  comb- 
iiig-wool ;  and  useful  and  valuable  for  a  different  purpose.  It 
had  not  deteriorated,  but  it  had  changed."  *  The  same  change, 
from  the  same  cause,  has  been  effected  in  the  Cheviot  wool  of 
Scotland. 

The  result  of  this  direction  of  the  agriculture  of  England,  to 
seek  profit  rather  from  the  meat  than  the  wool  in  the  culture 
of  their  flocks,  is  truly  astonishing  when  a  comparison  is  made 
with  France,  —  which  pursues  a  different  system,  —  making 
the  meat  accessory  to  the  wool,  as  it  is  with  us.     Each  country 

*  Youatt  on  Sheep,  p.  227. 


52 


lias  an  equal  number  of  sheep.  But  England  feeds  one  sheep 
per  acre,  while  France  feeds  only  one-tliird  of  a  head.  The 
produce  of  the  English  sheep  is  double  that  of  the  French  ;  and 
the  average  return  of  an  English  sheep-farm  is  six  times  greater 
than  a  French  one.* 

The  effect  of  this  system  upon  manufactures  is  no  less 
remarkable.  The  wool  of  England,  without  the  knowledge  or 
purpose  of  her  farmers,  has  become  a  combing-wool ;  and  the 
worsted  manufacture,  through  the  unconscious  influence  of 
Englisli  agriculture,  has  become  developed  to  such  an  extent, 
that  the  towns  of  Yorkshire  have  grown  up  as  marvellously  as 
those  of  our  great  West. 

The  uses  of  the  wool  have  changed.  It  was  anciently  em- 
ployed principally  for  making  says  and  serges^  —  grave  stuffs 
for  monks  or  mourners.  It  is  now  principally  used  for  making 
light  fancy  fabrics  for  female  apparel.  Spencer  describes  envy 
as  clad  in  a  garment  of  this  wool : — 

"  All  in  a  kirtle  of  discolored  say, 
He  clothed  was  y  painted  full  of  eies."  t 

The  female  of  modern  times,  arrayed  in  the  bright-colored 
textures  of  Bradford,  may  be  likened  to  the  Fidessa  of  Spencer 
in  her  outward  aspect: — 

"  A  goodly  lady  clad  in  scarlet  red, 
Purflod  with  gold  and  pearls."  J 

I  need  not  make  the  application  of  the  lesson  contained  in  these 
facts  to  our  own  country.  We  imported  in  1860  115,000,000  of 
worsteds,  principally  from  England.  We  made  only  $3,000,000. 
To  replace  the  English  worsteds  we  have  absolutely  no  raw 
material,  and  depend  wholly  upon  the  Leicester  and  Cotswold 
wools  of  Canada. §      Why  should  not  the  American,  as  well 

•  Rural  Economy  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,  by  Leonce  De  Lavergne, 
translated  from  the  French.     Edinburgh  and  London,  1865,  p.  27. 

t  The  Faerie  Queene,  Book  i.  Canto  iv. 

X  The  Faerie  Queene,  Book  i.  Canto  ii. 

§  The  wool  known  in  our  markets  as  Canada  wool  consists  wholly  of  fleeces  from 
the  long-wooled  Leicester,  Cotswold  sheep,  and  crosses  of  these  breeds  with  the  South- 


53 


as  the  English  farmer,  seek  a  profit  in  mutton  and  wool  as 
well  as  in  wool  alone,  and  thus  supply  the  greatest  necessity 
of  American  manufacture  ?  * 

Another  example  of  this  dependence  of  manufactures  upon 
agriculture  is  found  in  France.  The  attempts  of  Colbert  to 
naturalize  the  merino  had  so  utterly  failed,  that  it  was  believed 
impossible  to  raise  or  multiply  this  invaluable  animal  under 
the  climate  of  France.  A  century  after  Colbert  had  made  his 
attempts,  Trudaine,  the  Minister  of  Finances  under  Louis  XV., 
had  direction  of  the  departitient  of  commerce.  Although  at 
that  time  the  happy  effects  of  the  administration  of  the  Min- 
ister of  Louis  XIY.  were  evident,  in  the  progress  of  French 
industry,  the  indigenous  wools  were  all  of  moderate  quality,  and 
the  manufacturers  obtained  all  their  choice  wools  from  abroad. 
Spain  threatened  to  organize  manufactures  of  her  own,  and  it 
was  feared  that  France  would  be  no  longer  able  to  obtain  her 
clioice  wools.  To  remedy  this  evil,  Trudaine  conceived  the 
happy  thought  of  applying  to  Daubenton,  already  distinguished 


down,  recently  introduced  from  England.  Mr.  Stone,  of  Guelph,  Canada  West,  has 
taken  the  lead  in  the  introduction  of  these  sheep.  The  flocks  in  Canada  are  small, 
averaging  from  20  to  50  head.  It  has  been  estimated  that  6,000,000  pounds  of  long 
wool  will  be  grown  this  year.  Large  numbers  of  Canadian  sheep  have  been  carried 
to  the  West  during  the  present  season.  The  consumption  in  the  United  States  of 
Canada  wool  for  the  present  year,  is  estimated  by  Mr.  Cameron,  an  intelligent  worsted 
manufacturer,  whose  data,  showing  the  consumption  of  each  mill,  are  now  before  me,  at 
6,500,000  lbs.  The  success  of  the  Lowell  Manufacturing  Company,  in  fabricating 
alpaca  goods  from  Canada  lustre  wools,  has  demonstrated  that  the  wool  does  not 
deteriorate.  The  Canada  wool  has  been  found  equal  to  the  best  English  lustre  wool, 
imported  expressly  for  comparison.  The  free  wool  of  Canada  has  been  an  inestimable 
boon  to  our  worsted  manufacturers.  It  does  not  compete  with  the  production  of  our 
own  farmers,  as  we  grow  hardly  more  than  200,000  lbs.  of  long  wool,  while  Canada  con- 
sumes .300,000  lbs.  annually  of  our  clothing  wool.  It  is  not  possible  that  our  own  pro- 
duction of  long  wool  will  keep  up  with  the  demand. 

Long-wooled  Flemish  sheep  have  been  recently  imported  from  Friesland  by  Mr. 
Chenery,  of  Belmont.  They  are  said,  by  Youatt  (p.  176),  to  be  more  prolific  than  any 
English  breed.  Their  milk  is  valuable,  and  is  used  by  the  Dutch  in  the  manufacture  of 
a  considerable  quantity  of  cheese  of  a  good  quality. 

*  See  an  excellent  article,  on  the  Condition  and  Prospects  of  Sheep  Husbandry  in 
the  United  States,  in  the  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Agriculture  for  the  year  1862, 
p.  242,  in  which  the  raising  of  long-wooled  sheep  is  forcibly  recommended. 


54 


for  his  profound  investigations  in  zoology  and  comparative 
anatomy  at  the  Museum  of  the  Jardin  des  Plantes,  where  he 
was  associated  with  the  illustrious  Buflfon.  Daubenton,  who 
had  studied  the  question  of  domestic  animals  with  Buffon,  did 
not  hesitate  to  accept  the  mission  of  ameliorating  the  domestic 
sheep  of  his  own  country.  The  government  furnished  him  the 
means  of  establishing  a  sheep-fold  for  experiments  at  Montbard, 
his  native  country ;  and,  in  the  space  of  ten  years,  viz.,  from 
1766  to  1776,  he  had  solved  the  problem  which,  for  a  century, 
had  been  thought  impossible.  He  produced  superfine  wool 
from  the  coarse  native  sheep  of  France.  "  I  allied,"  he  says  in 
his  instructions  for  shepherds,  "  rams  whose  wool  was  the 
finest  with  ewes  having  as  much  hair  as  wool,  to  judge  by  ex- 
tremes the  effect  of  the  wool  of  the  ram  upon  that  of  the  ewe. 
I  was  surprised  to  see  issue  from  this  cross  a  ram  with  super- 
fine wool.  This  great  amelioration  gave  me  the  more  hope  for 
the  success  of  my  enterprise,  as  it  was  produced  by  a  Rousselon 
ram.*  I  had  at  that  time  had  no  Spanish  rams."  "  By  these 
experiments,  continued  with  the  greatest  precautions,"  he 
continues,  "I  brought  all  the  races  of  my  slieepfold  to  the 
degree  of  fineness  of  Spanish  wool  without  using  any  Spanish 
stock."  He  caused  his  wools  to  be  made  into  fabrics  at  the 
Gobelin  manufactory,  and  the  stuffs  were  pronounced  to  have 
all  the  fineness  of  those  made  with  Spanish  wools  with  more 
nerve  and  strength.  Convinced  by  this  success,  Louis  XVI. 
obtained  from  tlie  King  of  Spain,  in  1786,  a  flock  of  merinos, 
which  he  placed  at  Rambouillet,  under  the  direction  of  Dau- 
benton. Enlightened  by  his  previous  labors  upon  the  domestic 
sheep,  the  practical  naturalist  found  no  difficulty  in  accli- 
mating and  ameliorating  the  Spanish  race.  The  flock  at 
Rambouillet  was  multiplied.  It  furnished  an  example  and  sup- 
plied reproducers,  which  were  spread  everywhere  throughout 
France.     A  school  of  shepherds  was  organized ;  other  national 

*  The  finest  of  French  native  breeds.    Noveau  traite  sur  laine,  p.  67. 


55 


sheepfolds  were  founded,  and  the  merinos  were  established  in 
France.*  Daubenton  continued  to  publish  treatises  upon  their 
management.  Even  fifty-three  years  after  his  first  labors, 
when  84  years  old,  he  addressed  the  Institute  in  relation  to 
experiments   upon   sheep   which   he   was   then   carrying    on. 

*  One  of  tlie  most  interesting  results  of  the  acclimatation  of  the  merinos  in  France  is 
the  creation  of  a  new  and  perfectly  fixed  race,  remarkable  for  its  silky  wool,  called  the 
Mauchanip  race.  In  1828,  there  was  accidentally  produced  at  the  farm  of  Mauchamp, 
cultivated  by  M.  Graux,  a  ram,  badly  and  even  monstrously  fonned,  having  a  head  of 
unusual  size  and  a  tail  of  great  length,  but  having  a  wool  remarkable  for  its  softness, 
and  above  all  for  its  lustre,  which  resembled  that  of  silk.  This  was  the  second  animal  of 
the  kind  which  had  been  born  in  the  flock  of  merinos  at  Mauchamp;  the  first  had  been 
killed  by  the  mother.  Mr.  Graux  separated  it  from  the  flock,  and  raised  it  apart,  to  pre- 
vent any  accident,  and  used  it  for  reproduction;  obtaining  some  animals  similar  to  the 
sire,  and  others  to  the  dam.  Taking  afterwards  the  animals  similar  to  the  sire,  and  cross- 
ing them  among  themselves  or  with  the  sire,  which  served  as  a  type,  he  succeeded  in 
forming,  little  by  little,  a  small  flock  of  animals  whose  wool  was  perfectly  silky.  When 
he  had  arrived  at  this  result,  he  occupied  himself  in  niodif^'ing  the  fonivs,  which  he  easily 
accomplished;  and  finally  in  modifying  the  size,  originally  quite  small,  but  which  is  now 
the  same  as  that  of  ordinaiy  French  merinos,  —  rams  of  three  years  old  weighing  as  much 
as  80  kilogrannnes,  and  a  flock  of  six  hundred  head  producing  on  an  average  two  kilo- 
grammes of  wool  washed  on  the  back.  As  with  all  innovators,  Mr  Graux  met  on  all 
sides  detractors  of  his  discovery.  The  fanners,  pretended  tliat  the  silky  type  could  not 
be  preserved  when  transported  from  Mauchamp ;  and  the  manufacturers  asserted  that  the 
wool  was  so  pliant  and  slippery  that  nothing  could  be  done  with  it.  They  even  com- 
plained of  the  very  qualities  which  distinguish  it.  It  is  probable  that  the  discoverer 
would  have  renounced  the  development  of  this  magnificent  race,  if  he  had  not  been  en- 
couraged by  an  annual  subvention  from  the  government,  obtained  by  M.  Yvart,  the 
Inspector-general  of  the  imperial  sheepfolds.  In  1853,  M.  Davin,  a  nianufacturer  dis- 
tinguished for  his  zeal  and  skill  in  introducing  new  material  to  the  textile  arts,  experi- 
mented upon  the  material  rejected  by  others.  He  succeeded  in  making  magnificent 
stufis  which  excited  the  admiration  of  all  connoisseurs.  They  exhibited,  in  the  tender 
colors  especially,  reflections  of  light  which  had  never  been  before  observed,  and  a  softness 
which  had  never  been  found  in  any  material  of  wool  of  any  degree  of  fineness.  The 
silky  lustre  was  so  marked,  that,  in  a  challis  made  with  a  silken  warp  and  weft  of  Mau-. 
champ  wool,  although  the  stuff  contained  only  one-eighth  of  silk  and  seven-eighths  of 
silky  wool,  it  was  as  brilliant  as  if  made  entirely  of  silk.  Merinos,  mousselines,  satins  of 
China,  and  shawls,  made  of  this  material,  equalled,  if  they  did  not  surpass,  analogous  pro- 
ducts made  of  the  finest  Cashmere  yarns.  The  commission  of  savans,  who  reported  upon 
the  qualities  of  this  new  race  to  the  Imperial  Society  of  Acclimatation,  say:  "The  silky 
wool  is  destined  to  replace  completely  in  our  industry  the  Cashmere  which  comes  from 
Thibet.  It  is  fully  as  brilliant  as  Cashmere,  fully  as  soft;  and,  while  it  costs  less  as  a  raw 
material,  it  reciuires  less  manipulation  to  be  transfonned  into  yarn,  since  it  does  not  con- 
tain the  hair  (jarre),  which  must  be  removed  from  the  Cashmere."  In  1857,  a  medal  of 
the  first  class  was  decreed  to  M.  Davin  for  his  industrial  application  of  this  material ;  and 
the  society  above  referred  to  has  proposed  a  prize  of  2,000  francs  for  a  flock  of  one  hun- 
dred animals  of  the  silky  type.  Bulletin  de  la  Soci^t(5  Imperiale  Zoologique  d'Acclima- 
tation,  t.  V.  p.  113,  also  t.  vi.  p.  502. 


56 


Although  it  was  scarcely  before  the  establishment  of  the  em- 
pire that  the  advantages  of  the  new  race  began  to  be  under- 
stood, one-fourth  of  the  sheep  of  France  consist  at  present  of 
merinos  from  this  stock.  The  merino  of  France  has  become, 
through  the  culture  of  lier  agriculturalists,  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tinct of  the  merino  races.  In  size  and  weight  of  washed  wool 
it  surpasses  all  other  merinos,  and  their  French  savans  say  of 
them,  "  We  are  at  present  the  first  in  the  entire  world  for  the 
fineness  and  quality  of  our  wools,  and  the  beauty  and  good 
conformation  of  the  merinos  which  produce  them."  Within 
even  the  present  year  the  Imperial  Zoological  Society  of 
Acclimatation,  at  the  instance  of  its  President, —  the  illustrious 
Drouyn  de  L'huys,  the  Premier  of  Napoleon  III.,  —  has  dedi- 
cated a  statue  to  the  great  naturalist  who  endowed  France 
with  this  magnificent  legacy,  to  prove,  in  the  language  of  its 
Vice-president,  "  that  no  true  glory  passes  unperceived,  that 
every  serious  servitor  of  his  country  and  humanity  receives 
sooner  or  later  his  just  recompense."  * 

What  lias  been  the  effect  of  this  agricultural  achievement  of 
France  upon  the  character  of  her  fabrics  ?  The  high  culture 
of  the  French  sheep  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  great  size  and 
weight  of  fleece,  has  done  for  the  merino  in  France  what  it  did 
for  Southdown  in  England ;  it  has  added  length  to  the  fibre, 
and  made  it  a  genuine  combing-wool.f     Its  value  for  this  pur- 


•  M.  Richard,  Vice-president  of  the  Imperial  Society  of  Acclimatation.  See  Bulle- 
tin de  la  Soci^'t^  Imperiale  Zoologique  d' Acclimatation,  2  Sevie,  t.  i.  November,  1864, 
p.  647,  et  seq. 

t  Although  the  prevailing  character  of  the  French  fleeces  is  as  above  described,  a 
breed  of  sheep  hns  been  cultivated  to  a  limited  extent  in  France  which  rival  in  fineness 
of  wool  the  most  reputed  flocks  of  Saxony.  Tliey  are  called  the  sheep  of  Naz,  and 
have  been  cultivated  by  an  agricultural  association  of  that  name  for  over  sixty  years. 
The  original  nucleus  of  the  flock  was  derived  from  the  most  ancient  of  the  Royal 
Cabanas,  and  the  flock  has  been  increased  without  any  admixture  of  foreign  blood. 
The  flock  in  1840  had  been  reduced  to  about  500  head,  but  the  wool  still  preserved  its 
reputation  for  fineness,  softness,  force,  and  elasticity.  The  price  at  that  time  was  about 
five  francs  the  kilogramme  for  wool  in  the  yolk,  which  was  double  the  price  of  the 
wools  of  Ratnbouillet.  The  average  weight  of  the  fleeces  is  a  little  less  tiian  two  kilo- 
grammes, or  about  4  lbs.    Gen.  Lafayette  raised  sheep  of  this  race  at  La  Grange;  and 


57 


pose  is  thus  pronounced  by  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  the 
practical  manufacturers  of  France  : — 

"  There  are  two  facts  we  ought  to  proclaim  abroad. 

"  The  first  is,  that  without  the  introduction  of  the  Spanish 
race  into  our  flocks,  and  without  all  the  skill  of  our  agricul- 
turists, we  should  still  vegetate  in  dependence  upon  neighbor- 
ing nations,  and  should  be  reduced  to  clothe  ourselves  with 
their  stuffs.  It  is  to  the  admirable  revolution  in  the  raising  of 
ovine  animals  that  we  owe  the  beautiful  industry  of  spinning 
the  merino  combing-wools.  It  is  to  this  that  we  owe  the  splen- 
dor of  the  industries  of  weaving  combing-wool  at  Paris,  at 
Rheims,  at  Roubais,  at  Amiens,  and  St.  Quentin. 

"  Tlie  second  fact  is,  that  the  aspect,  the  quality,  the  char- 
acter of  our  modern  tissues,  in  a  word,  all  that  makes  them 
deserve,  for  forty  or  fifty  years,  the  name  of  new  inventions,  is 
due  principally  to  the  particular  nature  of  the  combing-wool 
obtained  by  the  Spanish  cross.  There  are  few,  very  few  inven- 
tions, in  the  contexture  of  the  stuffs,  or  in  their  mounting  upon 
the  looms,  which  are  still  the  same  as  in  the  18th  century.  It  is 
because  it  has  been  favored  by  the  wool  of  merinos  that  the  19th 
century  has  changed  the  physiognomy  of  the  tissues  of  preced- 
ing ages."  * 

Before  inquiring  what  profit  our  manufacturers  can  derive 
from  these  facts,  I  wish  to  cite  an  American  example  of  the 
influence  of  agriculture  upon  our  manufactures,  and  pay  hom- 
age to  an  American  name  less  widely  known  but  hardly  less 
deserving  of  honor  than  those  of  Bakewell  and  Daubenton. 

Col.  Humphreys,  who  had  been  a  member  of  Washington's 
family  at  his  home  on  the  Potomac,  and  had  been  imbued  with 
a  taste  for  agriculture  by  the  immortal  farmer  of  Mt.  Vernon, 
having  been  afterwards  Minister  to  Spain,  made  the  first  im- 

in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Skinner,  in  1828,  recommends  their  introduction  into  the  United 
States.  —  New  England  Farmer,  vol.  vii.  p.  92.    See  Bulletin  de  la  Soci(5te  d'Acclima- 
tation,  vol.  vii.  p.  479. 
*  Benioville,  p.  165. 


58 


portant  importation  of  pure  merino  sheep  from  the  Spanish 
cabanas.  In  1813,  Stephen  Atwood,  of  Woodbury,  Connecti- 
cut, bought  a  ewe  of  Col.  Humphreys.  He  bred  this  ewe  and 
her  descendants  with  rams  in  his  neighborhood,  which  he  knew 
to  be  of  the  pure  Humphreys's  blood,  until  about  1830,  after 
which  he  uniformly  used  rams  from  his  own  flock.  This  flock 
gaining  much  public  favor,  although  full  of  what  would  be 
now  regarded  deficiencies,  attracted  the  attention  of  Edwin 
Hammond,  a  farmer  of  Middlebury,  Vermont,  who  made  con- 
siderable purchases  of  Mr.  Atwood's  sheep  in  1844  and  1846. 
A  distinguished  member  of  this  Association,  whose  invaluable 
contributions  to  American-sheep  husbandry  place  him  by  the 
side  of  the  illustrious  Von  Thaer  in  Germany,  thus  describes 
the  physiological  achievements  of  Mr.  Hammond  :  "  By  a  per- 
fect understanding  and  exquisite  management  of  his  materials, 
this  great  breeder  has  effected  quite  as  marked  an  improve- 
ment in  the  American  merino  as  Mr.  Bakewell  effected  among 
the  long-wooled  sheep  of  England.  He  has  converted  the  thin, 
light-boned,  smallish,  and  imperfectly -covered  sheep  above 
described,  into  large,  round,  low,  strong-boned  sheep,  models 
of  compactness,  and  not  a  few  of  them  models  of  beauty,  for 
fine-wooled  sheep.*  I  examined  the  flock  nearly  a  week  in 
February,  1863.  They  were  in  very  fine  condition,  though  the 
ewes  were  fed  only  with  hay.  Two  of  them  weighed  about 
140  lbs.  each.  One  of  the  two  largest  ewes  had  yielded  a 
fleece  of  17|-  lbs.,  and  the  other,  14^  lbs.,  of  unwashed  wool. 
The  whole  flock,  usually  about  200  in  number,  —  with  a  duo 
proportion  of  young  and  old,  including  say  two  per  cent  of  old 
rams,  and  no  wethers,  —  yields  an  average  of  about  10  lbs. 

*  It  was  stated  at  a  public  discussion  at  the  Vermont  State  Fair,  in  September,  1865, 
that  Mr.  Hammond  was  offered  $  2,000  for  his  celebrated  ram  Gold-drop,  but  the  owner 
refused  to  sell  him.  He  alone  possessed  the  characteristics  he  had  been  striving  for  for 
years.  The  President  of  the  Society  stated  that  Mr.  Hammond  was  present  when  the 
lamb,  which  became  so  valuable,  was  dropped.  He  turned  it  over,  and  examined  it  -mth 
the  warmest  admiration,  and  exclaimed,  "  Welcome !  I  have  been  looking  for  you  fifteen 
years  and  more,  and  now  I  have  got  you."  —  Boston  Evening  Courier,  Sept.  16th,  1865. 


59 


of  unwashed  wool  per  head.  The  great  weight  is  not  made 
up  by  the  extra  amount  of  yolk  "  (although  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  this  is  not  the  prevailing  opinion  of  manufac- 
turers), "but  by  the  extra  length  and  thickness  of  every 
part  of  the  fleece.  It  is  of  a  high  medium  quality,  and  very 
even.  In  every  respect  tliis  eminent  breeder  has  directed  his 
whole  attention  to  solid  value,  and  has  never  sacrificed  a  par- 
ticle of  it  to  attain  either  points  of  no  value  or  less  value."  * 
The  genius  of  the  American  breeder  received  its  crowning 
honor  at  the  International  Exhibition  at  Hamburg,  in  1863. 
Sheep  bred  from  Mr.  Hammond's  stock,  exhibited  by  Mr. 
Campbell,  —  "  among  350  competing  sheep  from  Austria,  Prus- 
sia, Germany,  and  France,  —  received  a  first  prize  for  the  best 
ram,  a  second  prize  for  the  second  best  ram,  and  a  first 
prize  for  the  best  ewes."  f  The  fleeces  of  the  Vermont  breeds 
may  be  regarded  as  types  of  the  American  merino  fleece,  and 
the  character  of  this  wool  has  exerted  a  marked  influence  upon 
American  manufactures.  It  is  not  a  clothing-wool,  for  the 
American  merino  wool  exceeds  all  other  merino  wool  in  length. 
The  wool  exhibited  at  Hamburg  was  from  2f  inches  to  3^ 
inches  long;  and,  according  to  German  authorities  on  wool,  1^ 
inches  is  the  extreme  limit  for  the  length  of  clothing-wool  for 
the  filling4  Hence  we  have  comparatively  no  manufactures  of 
broadcloth. §     American  merino  wool  is  fitted  for  fancy  cassi- 


*  The  Practical  Shepherd,  by  Henry  S.  Randall,  LL.D.,  p.  29. 

t  See  extract  from  the  official  record  of  awards,  published  in  the  Rural  New  Yorker, 
September  9,  1865.  The  class  of  merinos  in  which  Mr.  Campbell's  were  shown  was 
"  stocks  which  have  been  bred  with  especial  reference  to  quantity  of  wool." 

J  "  A  length  of  li  inches  may  be  regarded  as  the  extreme  limit  for  card  (clothing) 
wool.  It  is  true  a  longer  wool  may  be  used,  but  then  it  is  only  for  the  warp  of  the  tis- 
sues, and  the  wool  required  for  this  purjjose  is  only  two-fifths  of  the  quantity  employed." 
Trait(5  des  Bfites  Ovines  par  Aug  de  Weckherlin.  Intendant  de  Prince  de  Hohen  2Jol- 
lern,  p.  90. 

§  Since  the  above  statement  was  made,  I  have  learned  that  it  requires  a  material 
qualification,  and  I  am  happy  to  say,  that  a  name  identified  with  the  establishment  of 
the  cotton  manufacture  in  tlie  United  States  is  to  be  associated  with  the  revival  of  the 


60 


meres,  in  which  we  excel ;  for  fine  shawls,  in  which  we  have 
attained  great  perfection ;  for  mousselines  de  laine,  wliich 
we  have  of  great  excellence,  and  which  we  owe  to  our  Ameri- 
can fleeces.  The  true  value  of  the  fleece  of  the  American 
merino  is  for  combing  purposes,  for  which  it  has  remarkable 
analogy  with  that  of  France.  This  country  will  never  know 
the  inestimable  treasure  which  it  has  in  its  fleeces,  until 
American  manufacturers  appropriate  them  to  fabricate  the 
soft  tissues  of  merinos,  tliibets,  and  cashmeres,  to  which 
France  owes  "  the  splendor  of  the  industries  of  combing-wool  at 
Paris,  Rlieims,  and  Roubaix."  Although  our  main  dependence 
for  raw  material  must  always  be  upon  our  agriculture,  it  sup- 
plies but  little  more  than  three-fourths  of  our  wants,  and  it  is 
probable  will  never  supply  it  wliolly.  Our  farmers  will  pro- 
bably never  attempt  to  supply  the  clieap  coarse  wools  which 
Egypt  and  South  America  furnish,  nor  will  they  soon  abandon 
the  lusty  merinos  for  the  small  and  delicate  Saxons.*  For  our 
very  coarse,  and,  for  some  time  to  come,  for  our  very  fine,  and 
for  our  long  wools,  we  must  depend  upon  the  foreign  market. 
Our  manufactures  certainly  cannot  be  extended  unless  we  can 
be  on  some  terms  of  equality  with  foreigners  who  have  no 
restriction  in  the  supply  of  raw  materials ;  for  all  the  principal 


broadcloth  manufacture  in  this  country.  During  the  present  year  the  Webster  Woollen 
Manufacturing  Company,  under  the  auspices  of  Mr.  II.  Nelsou  Slater,  has  established,  ou 
a  very  large  scale,  the  manufacture  of  broadcloths,  which  rival  the  best  German  fabrics. 

*  I  refer  to  the  wool  growers  of  the  north  and  west.  With  the  auspicious  advent  of 
free  labor,  an  inviting  tield  for  tine-wool  husbandry  is  opened  on  the  Appalachian  slopes 
of  the  Southern  States,  and  the  prairies  of  Texas.  I  have  the  authority  of  Mr.  Gilbert, 
of  Ware,  whose  opera  cloths,  made  of  the  finest  Saxony  and  Silesian  wools,  have  re- 
placed the  best  French  goods  in  the  New-York  market,  for  saying  that  most  admirable 
line  wools  have  been  grown  in  the  "  Panhandle,"  Virginia.  Judge  Baldwin,  the  late 
eminent  examiner  in  the  class  of  "Fibres  and  Textiles"  at  the  U.  S.  Patent  Office,  and 
formerly  a  practical  flockmaster  in  Tennessee,  assures  me  that  the  culture  of  fine-wooled 
sheep  can  be  pursued  to  the  utmost  advantage  in  the  Southern  States.  Cotton  may  not 
be  king  even  in  its  own  vaunted  domain. 

For  tlie  lx;st  historj'  extant,  in  our  language,  of  the  fine-wool  husbandry  of  Germany, 
the  reader  is  referred  to  the  article  of  Mr.  Fleischman  in  the  U.  S.  Patent  Office  IJeport 
for  1847. 


61 


manufacturing  nations  of  Europe  have  practically  tlirown  open 
their  markets  to  the  raw  material  of  manufacture.*  I  will 
refer  to  but  one  instance  of  the  impolicy  of  even  the  present 
comparatively  moderate  restrictions  upon  raw  material.  We 
have  already  constructed,  in  this  country,  machinery  adapted 
for  the  manufacture  of  bunting,  webbing,  braids,  and  bindings, 
sufficient  to  make  all  required  in  the  United  States.  The  long 
combing-wools  required  for  these  manufactures  cost  in  England 
35  cents,  and  pay  a  duty  of  12  cents  and  10  per  cent,  averaging 
about  45  per  cent.  Two  pounds  of  wool  are  required  to  make 
a  pound  of  worsted,  and  the  revenue  tax  on  the  manufactured 
goods,  therefore,  equals  12  per  cent  on  the  raw  material. 
Without  any  duty  on  the  imported  worsted,  the  foreign  manu- 
facturer would  have  an  advantage  of  57  per  cent.  The  duty 
on  bunting,  made  wholly  of  worsted  yarn,  is  50  per  cent.  The 
foreign  manufacturer  has  therefore  an  advantage  at  present 
of  7  per  cent  in  the  manufactnre  of  bunting.  A  large  por- 
tion of  the  worsted  yarns  now  made,  enter  into  the  fabrica- 
tion of  those  beautiful  goods  called  fancy  hosiery  goods, — 
zephyrs,  nubas,  &c., —  for  which  the  manufacturers  of  Phila- 
delphia are  so  celebrated.     The  only  protection  which  the 


*  Rates  of  duty  on  wool  imported  into  the  principal  manufacturing  nations  of  Europe, 
according  to  the  Customs  Tariffs  of  all  nations,  up  to  tlie  year  1855 : — 

Great  Britain Free. 

France  (Tariff  of  1860) „ 

Belgium „ 

Zollverein,  including  Prussia,  Saxony,  ) 

and  21  other  States i    '     '     '       " 

Netherlands „ 

(  20  copeks  per  pood  or 

Russia       \      about  2  cents  per 

(     pound. 

( 2d.   per   centner  (or 

Austria \      123i  lbs.  avoirdu- 

(     pois.) 

(  Common  35s.  5d.  per 

Spain <      100   lbs. ;    Saxon, 

I     23s.  9d.  per  100  lbs. 


62 


manufacturer  has,  is  his  superior  taste  and  knowledge  of  the 
styles  which  will  suit  the  American  fancy.  The  English  manu- 
facturers are  not  quick  enough  to  learn  our  styles  ;  although 
it  is  said  they  had  given  large  orders  for  Philadelphia  hosiery 
to  imitate  our  fashions.  One  mortifying  result  of  this  absolute 
discrimination  in  favor  of  the  English  worsted  manufacture  is, 
that  we  actually  make  no  bunting.  To  our  shame  be  it  spoken, 
all  our  flags  are  grown,  spun,  woven,  and  dyed  in  England ; 
and  on  the  last  4th  of  July,  the  proud  American  ensigns  which 
floated  over  every  national  ship,  post,  and  fort,  and  every 
patriotic  home,  flaunted  forth  upon  the  breeze  the  industrial 
dependence  of  America  upon  England  !  * 

I  do  not  propose  to  discuss  the  question  of  the  free  admis- 
sion of  raw  materials,  or  the  relative  duty  on  wool  and  woollen 
fabrics.  Most  of  us,  as  manufacturers,  believe  that  so  long  as 
the  home  product  of  wool  is  inadequate  to  the  supply  of  our 
machinery,  the  only  protection  which  can  avail  the  wool-grower 
must  include  protection  to  the  manufacturer;  and  that  any 
policy  which  deprives  the  manufacturer  of  the  home  market 
for  goods,  tends  to  deprive  the  grower  of  the  home  market  for 
wool,  and  to  oblige  him  to  compete  in  the  general  markets  of 
the  world  with  other  wool-growers ;  and  that  the  only  reliable 
protection  of  the  wool-grower  is  in  the  ability  of  the  manufac- 
turers to  convert  his  clip  into  goods  which  will  command  the 
home  market.  We  believe  that  the  mutuality  of  the  depend- 
ence of  the  two  industries  has  been  demonstrated  by  the 
experience  that  the  wool-growers  have  always  been  prosperous 
when  the  prosperity  of  the  manufacturing  interest  secured  them 
a  home  market,  and  that  the  seasons  of  depression  have  been 
only  when  the  depression  of  manufacturing  has  diminished 
the  home  demand.f    But  it  is  not  enough  for  us  to  believe,  or 


*  My  principal  authority  for  these  statements  ia  Mr.  Allen  Cameron,  of  the  Abbott 
Worsted  Company,  Westford,  Mass. 

t  See  argument  of  Mr.  Rowland  G.  Hazard  in  behalf  of  the  Rhode  Island  woollen 
manufacturers  before  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  May  11,  1864.    These  views 


63 


even  prove  all  this.  There  can  be  no  reliance  upon  a  perma- 
nent friendly  legislation  for  both  interests  unless  the  wool- 
growers  are  satisfied.  Our  object  is  not  to  reach  Congress,  but 
to  convince  the  farmers  of  the  West,  who  will  inevitably  con- 
trol the  legislation  of  this  country,  of  the  absolute  identity  of 
our  interests.  The  most  important  means  of  extending  our 
manufacture,  therefore,  is  to  establish  friendly  relations  with 
the  wool-growers.  How  shall  this  be  accomplished  ?  Let 
them  understand  that,  while,  individually,  the  manufacturers 
will  follow  their  commercial  instincts  in  buying  at  the  cheapest 
market,  they  utterly  repudiate  all  associations  or  combina- 
tions to  lower  the  market  price.  Let  manufacturers  be  more 
careful  in  the  selection  of  their  agents  for  purchasing  wool,  or 
let  them  go  themselves  into  the  agricultural  districts  and  be- 
come acquainted  with  the  farmers  and  their  flocks.  If  there 
is  any  rule  of  the  trade  which  operates  inequitably  towards  the 
wool-grower,  let  it  be  abolished.  The  complaint  has  been 
made  by  the  wool-growers,  that  the  rule  that  all  wools  shall  be 


are  not  confined  to  manufacturers.  I  find  the  following  in  the  New-England  Farmer, 
April,  1828,  vol.  vi.,  p.  298:  —  "Mr.  Mallary,  of  Vermont  (a  wool  growing  State),  in  his 
speech  on  the  tarift'  bill,  reported  by  the  Committee  on  Manufactures,  opposed  the  pro- 
posed additional  duty  on  wool  costing  eight  cents  per  pound  and  under.  He  said  such 
wool  was  not  and  would  not  be  produced  in  this  comitry.  The  fanners  of  Vermont 
would  not  grow  wool  worth  ten  or  twelve  cents,  when  they  could  as  well  produce  that 
which  may  be  worth  forty  or  fifty  cents.  This  coarse,  imported  wool  is  made  into  negro 
cloths  and  inferior  baizes  and  flannels.  The  manufacture  of  it  is  established,  and  ought 
not  to  be  driven  from  the  country  and  given  to  foreigners.  The  proposed  duty  would 
amount  to  more  than  100  per  cent,  and  would  ruin  the  manufacturer  of  coarse  fabrics  at 
a  blow,  without  benefiting  the  farmer.  If  the  latter  should  raise  wool  worth  eight  or 
twelve  cents,  he  could  not  find  a  market  for  it.  lie  was  also  opposed  to  the  other  provis- 
ions of  the  bill  respecting  wool  and  woollens.  The  charge  on  wool  was  too  high,  or  that 
on  woollens  was  not  high  enough;  and  this  disproportion  would  inevitably  ruin  the  man- 
ufacturer and  with  him  the  wool  grower.  If  the  farmer  could  not  purchase  the  wool  of  the 
latter,  it  would  be  in  vain  to  purchase  it.  The  markets  of  Europe  are  full  of  wool,  and 
prices  are  very  low.  The  English  wool-growers  are  petitioning  Parliament  for  a  duty  on 
foreign  wool,  but  their  petitions  will  not  be  granted.  The  English  woollen  manufacturers 
will  receive  every  encouragement,  and  will  be  able  to  sell  their  goods  at  the  lowest  rate 
possible  so  long  as  there  is  a  prosjiect  that  they  can  break  down  the  American  manufac- 
turers. Should  they  succeed  in  accomplishing  that  object,  they  will  theu  raise  their 
prices,  and  we  must  pay  them." — Hampshire  Gazette. 


64 


washed,  or  subjected  to  a  deduction  of  one-third,  to  put  them 
upon  a  par  with  brook-washed  wools,  operates  unequally  and 
inequitably.  I  am  happy  to  say  that  this  subject  has  been 
entrusted  to  a  committee  of  this  Association,  and  will,  doubt- 
less, receive  the  action  of  this  body.  Let  our  manufacturers 
interest  themselves  directly  in  the  production  of  desirable 
varieties  of  wool.  What  could  be  a  more  becoming  or  prac- 
tical contribution  from  our  manufacturers  to  agriculture,  than 
the  offer  of  a  really  munificent  prize  for  the  best  flock  of  fifty 
English  long-wooled  sheep,  born  and  raised  in  this  country,  or 
the  best  flock  of  Angora  goats  ?  *  A  practicable  mode  of  ex- 
tending amicable  relations  between  the  two  industries  is 
suggested  by  what  has  been  done  in  Germany.  In  1823,  the 
illustrious  Von  Thaer,  the  great  sheep-breeder  of  Germany, 
invited  all  the  flock-masters  and  wool-manufacturers  of  Ger- 
many to  meet  at  Leipsic,  and  visit  tiie  exposition  of  wools 
which  has  since  become  so  important.  He  urged  them  to 
enlighten  each  other  mutually  in  respect  to  their  reciprocal 
interests,  and  to  receive  precise  indications  of  the  demands  of 
manufacturers.  This  congress  convened,  and  was  continued 
from  year  to  year,  and  contributed  essentially  to  preserve  the 
reputation  of  German  wools  and  cloths.  An  important  result 
of  this  congress  was  the  adoption,  in  1848,  of  a  fixed  termin- 
ology for  the  raising  of  sheep  and  knowledge  of  wools. f     It  is 


*  The  Angora  goat,  wholly  unknown  to  the  ancients,  and  first  described  by  Belon  in 
the  sixth  centun-,  is  ditt'used  around  the  mountains  of  Thibet,  and  beyond  the  central 
plains  of  Asia  from  Armenia  to  Chinese  Tartar^-.  The  district  of  Angora,  where  it  most 
abounds,  is  described  as  a  country  with  a  dry  atmosphere,  and  very  hot  summers,  and 
very  cold  winters,  —  the  mercury  descending  to  20  degrees  centigrade.  The  number  of 
head  in  the  district  of  Angora  is  estimated  at  from  400,000  to  600,000,  and  the  i)roduct  of 
wool  at  2,000,000  pounds.  Formerly  the  wools  of  Angora  were  spun  and  woven  in  tlie 
place,  and  were  exported  in  the  form  of  yams  and  camlets,  of  which  the  city  of  Angora 
sold,  in  1844,  35,000  pieces  to  Europe.  The  exportation  of  the  wool  called  tiftik  in 
Turkey,  and  mohair  in  England,  was  prohibited,  and  the  native  spinners  and  weavers 
were  protected  against  the  machinery  of  Europe.  Some  1200  looms  were  employed. 
The  natives  displayed  great  skill  in  making  gloves  and  hosierj-,  and  sunmier  robes  of 
great  beauty  for  the  Turkish  grandees.    The  town  flourished,  and  the  whole  population 

t  Wecherlin,  Traits  des  betes  ovines,  p.  25. 


65 

believed  that  a  convention  of  delegates  from  the  respective 
associations  of  wool-growers  and  manufacturers  in  this  country 
would  have  the  happiest  effect  upon  the  harmony  of  both  in- 
terests, and  might  accomplish  important  practical  results,  not 
the  least  of  which  would  be  the  adoption  of  a  fixed  terminology 
for  the  description  and  knowledge  of  wools  in  our  own  markets 
and  farms. 

The  surest  means  of  developing  our  industry  rests  with  the 
manufacturer  alone.  It  is  for  him  perpetually  to  aspire  to  the 
utmost  excellence  in  his  products.  I  need  not  say  that  the 
manufacturer  who  suffers  his  goods  to  run  down  will  inevitably 
bring  down  with  them  his  credit  and  his  fortune.  I  need  not 
say  that  the  trade-marks  on  your  goods  should  be  like  the 
tower  mark  on  old  silver,  the  stamp  of  the  true  metal,  or  the 
marks  on  Swedish  iron,  recognized  all  over  the  world  as  infal- 


was  employed  and  happy  in  the  pursuit  of  their  beautiful  industry.  The  Turkish  Gov- 
ernment was  tempted,  by  British  influence,  to  admit,  free  of  duty,  the  products  of  European 
machinery,  and  to  permit  the  export  of  the  raw  tiftik.  This  fatal  step  was  the  death- 
blow to  the  town  of  Angora.  Instead  of  1200,  not  more  than  fifty  looms  were  employed; 
the  retail  merchants,  weavers,  hand-spinners,  and  dyers,  were  ruined,  and  the  city,  having 
at  its  command  all  the  raw  material  for  a  most  important  and  characteristic  manufacture, 
offers,  in  its  sad  decline,  another  monument  of  the  desolating  influence  of  that  system 
which  would  make  the  raw  material  of  every  country  tributary  to  the  one  great  workshop 
of  the  world.  Nearly  all  the  product  of  Angora  wool  is  now  exported  to  England,  and  is 
spun  into  yams  which  are  largely  exported  to  France.  They  are  used  for  the  manufac- 
ture of  Utrecht  velvets,  lace,  braid,  fine  shawls,  &c.  Vigorous  attempts  have  recently 
been  made  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  especially  in  France,  to  acclimate  this  species ;  but 
nowhere  have  they  succeeded  as  in  the  United  States.  The  first  importations  of  seven 
head  were  made  about  seventeen  years  ago  by  Dr.  Davis,  of  South  Carolina.  About  three 
hundred  have  been  imported  since.  Their  progeny,  with  crosses,  is  said  by  Mr.  Diehl 
to  number  several  thousand,  scattered  in  flocks  of  from  12  to  300  hundred  head,  princi- 
pallj'  in  the  south-western  States.  A  flock  imported  this  season  by  Mr.  Chenerj',  of  Bel- 
mont, Mass.,  which  I  liave  examined,  is  in  excellent  condition.  This  flock  numbered  ten 
when  it  started,  and  fourteen  upon  arrival  at  Boston.  They  were  driven  800  miles  to 
Constantinople,  and  were  seven  months  upon  the  voyage,  but  arrived  in  good  health. 
The  value  of  the  wool  in  the  market  is  now  about  S1.26  per  pound  (not  S6  to  $8,  as 
stated  in  the  Agricultural  Rejjorts).  The  agent  of  the  Abbott  Worsted  Manufactur- 
ing Co.,  Westford,  Mass.,  infonns  me  that  he  has  similar  machinery  for  spinning  this 
wool  to  that  used  in  the  celebrated  establishment  of  Titus  Salt,  of  Bradford.  —  See 
article  by  Israel  S.  Diehl,  U.  S.  Agricultural  Report,  1863,  p.  216.  Southey  on  Colonial 
Wools,  p.  322,  et  seq.    Bulletin  de  la  Soci(^t<?  d'Acclimatation,  t.  v.  p.  569. 

9 


66 


lible  seals  of  uniform  excellence.  The  credit  of  your  mills  and 
the  honor  of  your  houses  will  be  the  most  certain  fortunes  for 
yourselves  and  the  best  legacies  to  your  sons.  But  it  is  not 
enough  that  you  should  be  content  to  keep  up  the  old  standard 
of  your  goods.  The  highest  attribute  of  humanity  is  the  pas- 
sion for  perfection,  the  aspiration  for  some  unattained  ideal. 
The  noblest  men  stamp  these  aspirations  upon  all  their  earnest 
works;  they  are  then  no  longer  workmen,  traders;  they  be- 
come artists.  Art  is  not  found  alone  in  painting  and  sculp- 
ture. It  is  the  domain  of  Minerva,  who  gave  the  distaff,  as 
well  as  of  the  Muses.  The  lover  of  art  sees  it  in  "the  Stones  of 
T'enice,"  the  iron  scroll-work  and  armor  of  the  middle  ages,  and 
in  the  old  tapestries  of  Versailles,  —  in  every  work  of  man's 
hands  which  bears  the  impress  of  his  soul.  The  sturdy  honesty 
of  the  English  clothiers  of  former  times,  and  their  workmanlike 
fidelity  to  the  canons  of  their  ancient  guild,  made  the  old- 
fashioned  cloth  of  England  as  sound  and  solid  as  English  oak. 
A  higher  sentiment,  a  passion,  as  it  were,  for  an  ideal  fineness 
and  nobility  of  fibre,  incited  the  German  flock-masters  to  create 
the  unparalleled  cloth  wools  which  have  given  Silesia  the 
crown  of  the  "  golden  fleece."  A  passion  for  an  ideal  perfec- 
tion of  tissues  inspires  the  master  weavers  and  spinners  of 
Prance  in  their  perpetual  strife  to  conquer  new  fields  for  her 
industrial  glory.  It  impels  them  to  add,  each  year,  to  the  fine- 
ness and  softness  of  their  threads,  and  the  perfection  of  their 
tissues,  till  their  fabrics  have  become  models  which  the  spindles 
and  looms  of  all  other  nations  are  content  to  simulate,  but  fail 
to  imitate.  All  American  industry  needs  to  be  vivified  by  such 
aspirations;  Every  earnest  worker  with  such  a  purpose  is  a 
blessing  to  his  country  and  race.  As  Mr.  Ruskin  said,  in  his 
art  lecture  to  the  manufacturers  of  Bradford,  "  If  you  resolve 
from  the  first,  that,  as  far  as  you  can  ascertain  what  is  best,  you 
will  produce  what  is  best,  on  an  intelligent  consideration  of 
the  probable  tendencies  and  possible  tastes  of  the  people  whom 


67 


you  supply,  you  may  literally  become  more  influential  for  all 
kinds  of  good  than  many  lecturers  on  art,  or  many  treatise- 
writers  on  morality."  I  will  add :  By  such  noble  work  you 
rise  above  the  sphere  of  common  labor ;  you  become  more  than 
workmen,  —  more  than  artists,  —  you  become  creators,  imi- 
tators, though  humble,  still  worthy,  of  the  great  Worker,  the 
infinite  Maker.  Indulge  me  a  moment  longer  while  I  give  you, 
in  the  eloquent  words  of  a  great  teacher  now  passed  away, 
the  supreme  example  which  is  set  for  your  labors.*  "  A 
thoughtful  man  for  the  first  time  goes  to  some  carpet-mill  in 
Lowell.  He  looks  out  of  the  window  and  sees  dirty  bales  of 
wool  lying  confusedly  about  as  they  were  dropped  from  the 
carts  that  brought  them  there.  Close  at  hand  is  the  Merrimac 
River,  one  end  of  it  pressed  against  the  New-Hampshire  moun- 
tains and  the  sky  far  off,  while  the  other  crowds  upon  the  mill- 
dam,  and  is  going  through  its  narrow  gate.  Under  the  factory 
it  drives  the  huge  wheel,  whose  turning  keeps  the  whole  town 
ajar  all  day.  Above  is  the  great  bell  which  rings  the  river  to 
its  work.  Before  him  are  pullies  and  shafts.  The  floor  is 
thick  set  with  looms.  There  are  rolls  of  various  colored  woollen 
yarns ;  bits  of  card,  pierced  with  holes,  hang  before  the  weaver, 
who  now  pulls  a  handle,  and  the  shuttles  fly,  wedding  the  woof 
to  the  expectant  warp,  and  the  handsome  fabric  is  slowly 
woven  up  and  rolled  away.  The  thoughtful  man  wonders  at 
the  contrivance  by  which  the  Merrimac  River  is  made  to  weave 
such  coarse  materials  into  such  beauty  of  form  and  finish. 
What  a  marvel  of  machinery  it  is !  None  of  the  weavers  quite 
understand  it, — our  visitor  less.  He  goes  ofi",  wondering  what  a 
head  it  must  be  which  made  the  mill  a  tool  by  which  the  Mer- 
rimac transfigures  wool  and  dye-stufls  into  handsome  carpets, 
serviceable  for  chamber,  parlor,  staircase,  or  meeting-house." 
"  But,  all  day  long,  you  and  I,  .  .  .  and  all  the  people  in  the 

*  Lessons  from  the  World  of  Matter  and  the  World  of  Man,  by  Theodore  Parker. 
Boston.     1865.     p.  51. 


68 


world,  are  in  a  carpet-factory  far  more  wonderful.  What  vast 
forces  therein  spin  and  weave  continually !  What  is  the  Merri- 
mac  River,  wliich  only  reaches  from  the  New-Hampshire  moun- 
tains to  the  sea,  compared  to  that  river  of  God,  on  whose  breast 
the  earth,  the  sun,  the  solar  system,  yea,  the  astral  system,  are 
but  bubbles  wliich  gleam,  many-colored,  for  a  moment,  or  but 
dimple  that  stream,  and  which  swiftly  it  whirls  away  ?  What 
is  the  fabric  of  a  Lowell  mill  to  that  carpet  which  God  lays  on 
the  floor  of  the  earth  from  the  Arctic  Circle  to  the  Antarctic, 
or  yet  also  spreads  on  the  bottom  of  the  monstrous  sea  ?  It  is 
trod  under  foot  by  all  mankind.  The  elephant  walks  on  it,  and 
the  royal  tiger.  What  multitudes  of  sheep,  swine,  and  horned 
cattle,  lie  down  there  and  take  their  rest !  What  tribes  of 
beasts,  insects,  reptiles,  birds,  fishes,  make  a  home  there,  or 
feed  thereon !  Moths  do  not  eat  away  this  floor-cloth  of  the 
land  and  sea.  The  snow  lies  on  it.  The  sun  lurks  there  in 
summer,  the  rain  wets  it  all  the  year :  yet  it  never  wears  out ; 
it  is  dyed  in  fast  colors.  Now  and  then  the  feet  of  armies  in 
their  battles  wear  a  little  hole  in  this  green  carpet;  but  next 
year  a  handsome  piece  of  botanic  rug-work  covers  up  the  wear 
and  tear  of  Sebastopol  and  Delhi,  as  of  old  it  repaired  the  waste 
of  Marathon  and  Trasimenus.  Look !  and  you  see  no  weaver, 
no  loom  visible;  but  the  web  is  always  there  on  the  ground  and 
under  the  sea.  The  same  Clothier  likewise  keeps  the  live 
world  tidy,  and  in  good  trim.  How  all  the  fishes  are  dressed 
out, — thdse  glittering  in  plate-armor,  these  only  arrayed  in  their 
vari-colored  jerkins,  such  as  no  Moorish  artist  could  paint! 
How  well-clad  are  the  insects.  With  what  suits  of  mail  are 
beetle  and  bee  and  ant  furnished.  The  coat  of  the  bufialo 
never  pinches  under  the  arm,  never  puckers  at  the  shoulder ;  it 
is  always  the  same,  yet  never  old  fashioned,  or  out  of  date.  .  .  . 
The  pigeon  and  humming-bird  wear  their  court-dress  every 
day,  and  yet  it  never  looks  dusty  nor  threadbare.  In  this 
grand  clothiery  of  the  world,  everything  is  clad  in  more  beauty 


69 


than  many-colored  Joseph  or  imperial  Solomon  ever  put  on,  yet 
nobody  sees  the  wheel,  the  loom,  or  the  sewing  machine  of 
this  great  Dorcas  institution,  which  carpets  the  earth  and 
upholsters  the  heavens  and  clothes  the  people  of  the  world  with 
more  glory  than  the  Queen  of  Sheba  ever  saw  in  her  dream  of 
dress  and  love." 


N, 


APPENDIX. 


The  By-laws  of  the  "  National  Association  of  Wool  Manufacturers  " 
make  it  the  duty  of  the  Secretary  to  prepare,  under  the  direction  of 
the  government,  an  annual  report  of  the  transactions  and  condition 
of  the  Association.  The  following  is  submitted  in  conformity  with 
this  requirement :  — 

The  want  of  some  organization,  capable  of  united  and  systematic 
action,  having  long  been  felt  among  those  engaged  in  the  woollen 
manufacture,  a  circular  was  addressed,  on  the  tenth  day  of  August, 
1864,  to  those  most  directly  interested  in  the  matter.  In  response  to 
this  call,  a  large  number  of  the  leading  wool  manufacturers  of  the 
country,  from  Ohio,  Pennsylvania,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Mary- 
land, Delaware,  and  from  each  of  the  six  New-England  States, 
assembled  in  convention  at  Springfield,  Mass.,  on  the  twelfth  day  of 
October,  1864.  The  Convention  at  that  time  resolved  that  it  should 
proceed  to  the  formation  of  a  "  National  Association  of  Wool  Manu- 
facturers." To  carry  this  resolution  into  effect,  a  committee  was 
appointed  to  prepare  a  plan  of  organization,  and  report  at  an  ad- 
journed meeting  of  the  Convention,  to  be  held  on  the  30th  of  Novem- 
ber following.  The  Convention  having  met  on  that  day,  and  having 
been  dissolved,  the  Association  was  organized  by  adopting  Articles 
and  By-laws  which  had  been  presented  by  the  Committee,  and  by 
choosing  officers  as  therein  described.  Meetings  of  the  government, 
provided  for  in  the  By-laws,  were  successively  held  at  Boston, 
Mass.,  on  the  twenty-first  day  of  December,  1864 ;  at  New  York, 
on  the  fifteenth  day  of  March,  1865  ;  at  New  York,  on  the  seven- 
teenth day  of  May,  1865  ;  at  Newport,  R.I.,  on  the  twenty-sixth 
day  of  July,  1865 ;  and  at  Philadelphia,  on  the  6th  of  Septem- 
ber. These  meetings  were  all  numerously  attended.  At  all  of  them 
interesting  discussions  took  place  upon  questions  relating  to  the  inter- 


71 


ests  of  the  Association.  Committees  were  also  appointed,  having  in 
charge  the  more  important  matters  to  be  acted  upon  by  the  govern- 
ment. By  the  direction  of  the  government,  a  statement  was  prepared 
by  the  President  of  the  "  Objects  and  Plan "  of  the  Association. 
This  has  been  printed  and  extensively  circulated.  It  was  regarded 
by  the  government,  that  the  first  and  most  important  duty  of  the 
Association  was  to  obtain  information  of  the  actual  condition  of 
the  woollen  manufacture  throughout  the  United  States.  With  great 
labor,  a  list  of  all  persons  known  or  believed  to  be  engaged  in  the 
woollen  manufacture  was  prepared.  Circulars  containing  such  inter- 
rogatories as  would  draw  forth  the  desired  information  were  sent  to 
all  persons  on  this  list,  about  1,700  in  all;  931  returns  have  been 
received,  representing  4,073  sets  of  machinery,  and  returns  are  com- 
ing in  daily.  It  is  believed  that  by  this  means  the  Association  will 
be  in  possession  of  complete  and  accurate  statistics  of  the  woollen 
machinery  in  operation  in  this  country,  the  amount  and  description  of 
wool  consumed,  and  the  quantity  and  character  of  goods  manufac- 
tured,—  information  indispensable  for  wise  and  just  legislation  in 
matters  affecting  our  interests.  It  is  believed  that  no  inquiries  at 
present  pursued  by  the  national  Government  will  furnish  a  basis  for 
such  legislation.  It  is  the  object  of  the  government  to  place  the 
Association  upon  such  a  basis  that  it  shall  have  weight  in  our  national 
councils,  and  that  the  interests  of  all  the  woollen  manufacturers  of 
the  country  shall  be  fully  represented  and  cared  for.  The  govern- 
ment believe  that  they  have  accomplished  all  that  could  have  been 
expected  in  the  few  months  of  the  existence  of  the  Association,  in 
completing  its  organization  and  arranging  its  machinery.  They  have 
not  deemed  it  wise  to  attempt  too  much,  or  to  make  a  display  of  their 
operations.  The  value  of  such  an  organization  exists  most  in  its 
silent  and  hardly  appreciable  influence  ;  and  time  and  patience  are 
necessary  to  secure  that  which  is  really  useful  and  permanent.  The 
Association  consists,  at  present,  of  201  members ;  a  number  which, 
it  is  hoped,  may  be  greatly  increased  when  our  "  Objects  and  Plans" 
are  more  fully  known. 

Respectfully  submitted,  JOHN   L.  HAYES, 

Secretary. 


72 


TABLE, 

Showing  the  Value  of  Woollen  Ooods  manufactured  in  the  United  States,  for  the  Year 
ending  June  30,  1864.  Calculated  from  Official  Report  of  United-States  Commis- 
sioner of  Internal  Revenue. 


STATES. 


Manufacturers  of 

WOOL 
not  otherwise  pro* 


Clofhs,  and  all 

Textilr.  Knitted  or 

Felted  Fabrics  of 

WOOL, 

before  dyed,  printed, 

or  prepared  in  any 

other  manner. 


Manufacturers  of 

WORSTED 
not  otherwise  pro- 


Maime 

New  Hampshire  .    . 

Vermont 

Massachusetts  .  . 
Rhode  Island  .  .  . 
Connecticut  .  .  . 
New  York  .... 
New  Jersey  .  .  . 
Pennstlvania  .  .  . 
Delaware  .... 
Maryland  .... 
West  Virginia  .  . 
Kentucky    .... 

Missouri 

Ohio 

Indiana 

Illinois 

Michigan  .... 
Wisconsin     .... 

Iowa 

Minnesota   .... 

Kansas     

California  .... 

Oregon    

Nebraska  Territory 


Dollars. 

3,238,0^8.67 

9,044,762.00 

3,145,933.67 

38,905,399.00 

2,963,154.33 

11,873,763.67 

10,850,180.00 

2,752,652.00 

13,022,447.33 

548,134.67 

450,385.33 

58,486.00 

117,534.33 

72,980.00 

1,315,243.00 

545,128.33 

841,907.00 

118,094.00 

104,457.67 

102,815.67 

8,696.00 

14,947.67 

538,966.00 

128,620.67 

45.67 


Dollars. 

238,385.00 

34,915.00 

562,788.00 

800,531.33 

7,668,531.67 

3,913,965.00 

2,214,802.67 

25,361.67 

3,502,190.00 

1,526.67 

5,267.00 

242,370.67 

2,364.00 

85,634.67 

11,794.33 

11,384.00 

33,754.33 

860.00 

15,489.67 

450.00 


897,720.67 
261,014.33 

78,912.33 

912,792.38 

70.33 

75,076.00 


1,692.67 
5,793.83 


121,868,250.33 


73 


STATEMENT  OF  AGGREGATE  RESULTS, 

Obtained  up  to  October  25,  1865. 
In  Reply  to  Circulars  of  Feb.  24,  1865,  and  May  30,  1865,  addressed  to  Wool  Manufacturers. 


STATES. 


lAINE 

[ew  Hampshire  .    .    . 

'ermont 

[assachusetts  .  .  . 
HODE  Island  .... 
Ionnecticut    .... 

[EW  York 

[ew  Jersey  .... 
ennsylvania: 

Philadelphia  .... 

Remainder  of  the  State 

Delaware 

[aryland    

I'^EST  Virginia  .  .  . 
(hio 

NDIANA 

LLINOIS 

[ICHIGAN 

ITiaCONSIN 

Iinnesota 

OWA 

IlSSOUEI 

[entucky 

[ansas      

!alifornia 

)regon     

fEBRASKA  Territory  . 


Returns 

Re- 
ceived. 


Total,  Oct.  25, 1865  . 


40 


186 
61 
88 

154 
11 

24 

57 

6 

1 

44 

47 

22 

20 

13 

1 

15 

10 

7 

1 


917 


Sets 
Re- 
ported. 


177 

361 
112 
1,467 
340 
452 
576 
64 


90 
16 


83 
103 
47 
26 
25 

2 
43 
21 
14 

3 


Weekly 
Consumption 


4,100 


93,835 
217,110 

50,217 
857,496 
188,775 
252,880 
236,510 

33,660 

88,200 

39,064 

14,050 

5.400 


32,616 
51,200 
23,356 

9,660 
10,800 

1,200 
17,658 
16,650 

6,600 

1,620 


4,000 


Weelily 
Consumption 


Weekly 
Consunipilo 


74,120 
174,841 

32,652 
560,396 
162,967 
125,486 
174,636 

25,238 

68,650 

39,054 

13,050 

2,700 


32,615 
51,200 
23,356 

9,660 
10,800 

1,200 
17,658 
16,660 

6,600 

1,620 


19,715 
42,269 
17,665 

297,100 
35,808 

127,394 

61,974 

8,422 

19,550 

1,000 
2,700 . 


4,000 


Per- 
centage 


19J 

19i 

35 

34i 

19 

50i 

26i 

25 

22J 

n 

50 


2,262,545  |  1,619,038     633,497   .  28 J    660   624 


10 


OFFICERS. 


^SnstHent. 

E.  B.  BIGELOW Boston,  Mass. 

T.  S.  FAXTON Utica,  N.Y. 

THEODORE  POMEROY Pittsfield,  Mass. 

SAMUEL  BANCROFT Media,  Pa. 

5Crea8urcr. 

WALTER  HASTINGS Boston,  Mass. 

Secretarg. 

JOHN  L.  HAYES Boston,  Mass. 


Maine. 
R.  W.  Robinson,  Dexter. 
J.  H.  Burleigh,  South  Berwick. 
Thomas  S.  Lang,  N.  Vassalboro'. 

New  Hampshire. 
D.  H.  BuFFUM,  Great  Falls. 
Daniel  Holden,  Concord. 

Vermont. 

S.  Woodward,  Woodstock. 
Seth  B.  Hunt,  Bennington. 

Massachtisetts. 
Jesse  Eddy,  Fall  River. 
S.  Blackington,  North  Adams. 
Joshua  Stetson,  Boston. 

A.  C.  Russell,  Great  Barrington. 
G.  H.  Gilbert,  Ware. 

C.  W.  Holmes,  Monson. 

Connecticut. 
Homer  Blanchard,  Hartford. 
J.  Converse,  Stafford  Springs. 

B.  Sexton,  Warehouse  Point. 
George  Kellogg,  Rockville. 
George  Roberts,  Hartford. 


lircctorg. 

Rhode  Island. 
S.  T.  Olney,  Providence. 
RowsE  Babcock,  Westerly. 

New  York. 
A.  J.  Williams,  Utica. 
Charles  Stott,  Hudson. 
Edward  A.  Green,  New  York. 

New  Jersey. 
Jonas  Livermore,  Blackwoodtown. 
David  Oakes,  Bloonifield. 

Pennsylvania. 
S.  W.  Cattell,  Philadelphia. 
Emanuel  Hey,  ,, 

John  Covode,  Lockport  Station. 
Charles  Spencer,  Germautown. 

Delaware. 
William  Dean,  Newark. 

Maryland. 
Charles  Wethered,  Baltimore. 

Ohio: 
Alton  Pope,  Cleveland. 
A.  P.  Stone,  Columbus. 


Stantifng  Cotnmftteeg. 


Finance. 


J.  W.  Edmands,  Boston,  Mass. 
Edward  Harris,  Woonsocket,  R.L 
S.  D.  W.  Harris,  Rockville,  Ct. 
J.  W.  Stitt,  New  York,  N.Y. 
Benjamin  Bullock,  Plviladelphia,  Pa. 

Statistics. 

R.  G.  Hazard,  Peacedale,  R.I. 
James  Roy,  West  Troy,  N.Y. 
Archibald  Campbell,  Manayunk,Pa. 
N.  Kingsbury,  Hartford,  Ct. 
J.  V.  Barker,  Pittsfield,  Mass. 


Raw  Material. 
George  W.  Bond,  Boston,  Mass. 
H.  D.  Tellkampf,  New  York,  N.Y. 
S.  B.  Stitt,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 
T.  S.  Faxton,  Utica,  N.Y. 
J.  J.  Robinson,  Rockville,  Ct. 

Machinery. 
Richard  Garbed,  Frankford,  Pa. 
J.  K.  KiLBOURN,  Pittsfield,  Mass. 
C.  H.  Adams,  Cohoes,  N.Y. 
Estus  Lamb,  Blackstone,  Mass. 
Robert  Middleton,  Utica,  N.Y. 


LIST    OF    MEMBERS. 


MAINE. 

Galen  C.  Moses Bath. 

Newichawanock  Co.,  J.  II.  Burleigh,  Ag't So.  Berwick. 

Dexter  Mills,  R.  W.  Robinson,  Ag't Dexter. 

S.  O.  Brown Dover. 

Anson  P.  Morrill Readfield. 

Thomas  S.  Lang No.  Vassalboro' 

NEW    HAMPSHIRE. 

J.  M.  Babcock  &  Co., Barnstead. 

B.  F.  &  D.  HoLDEN West  Concord. 

Almon  Harris Fisherville. 

Great-Falls  Woollen  Co.,  B.  H.  Bvffum,  Ag't  .    .    .  Great  Falls. 
D.  Henshaw  Ward,  Ag't  Ashuelot  Manufacturing  Co.     .  Keene. 

Moses  Sargent,  Jr Lake  Village. 

Milton  Mills,  E.  R.  Mudge,  Sawyer  &  Co.,  Ag'ts      .    .  Milton. 

VERMONT. 

Seth  B.  Hunt Bennington. 

Holmes,  Whittemore,  &  Co Springfield. 

Burlington  Woollen  Co.,  J.  Stetson,  Treas Winooski. 

Solomon  Woodward Woodstock. 

MASSACHUSETTS. 

S.  Blackinton       No.  Adams. 

S.  W.  Brayton  &  Co „        „ 

Dean  &  La  Monte So.      „ 

George  L.  Davis No.  Andover. 

N.  Stevens  &  Sons „        „ 

Assabet  Manuf'g  Co.,  T.  Quincy  Browne,  Treaa.  .    .     .  Assabet. 
Miller's-River  Manuf'g  Co.,  Geo.  T.  Johnson,  Ag't  .    .  Athol. 

C.  P.  Talbot  &  Co Billerica. 

Estus  Lamb       Blackstone. 

R.  M.  Bailey Boston. 

Erastus  B.  Bigelow „ 


76 

George  William  Bond Boston. 

Gardner  Brkwer  &  Co „ 

Gardner  Colby     „ 

J.  C.  Converse,  Blagden,  &  Co ,. 

Reuben  S.  Denney „ 

J.  Wiley  Edmands „ 

George  L.  Harwood „ 

Walter  Hastings „ 

James  L.  Little , 

Amory  Maynard „ 

Adolphus  Merriam , 

Charles  Merriam , 

Perry  &  Wendeli „ 

George  W.  Ryley „ 

M.  H.  Simpson , 

John  H.  Stephenson , 

Austin  Sumner,  Treas.  Merch.  Woollen  Co.,  Dedham,  Mass.       „ 
Henry  V.  Ward,  Treas.  Lawrence  Manufacturing  Co.     .       „ 

C.  L.  Harding Cambridge. 

French  &  Ward Canton. 

Damon,  Smith,  &  Co Concord. 

Thomas  Barrows Dedham. 

Dighton  Woollen  Co.,  William  C.  Wkitridge,  Fres.      .  Dighton. 

Jesse  Eddy,  &  Son Fall  River. 

F.  B.  Ray Franklin. 

Allan  Cameron Graniteville. 

Berkshire  Woollen  Co.,  A.  C.  Russell,  Ag't   .    .    .    .  Gt.  Barrington. 

F.  W.  Hinsdale  &  Brother Hinsdale. 

Plunkett  Woollen  Co.,  C.  J.  Kittredge,  Pres.     ...        „ 
August  Steusberg Holyoke. 

D.  D.  Crombie Lawrence. 

George  A.  Fuller , 

Pacific  Mills,  W.  C.  Chapin,  Ag't „ 

Washington  Mills,  Joshua  Stetson,  Treas „ 

Elizur  Smith Lee. 

Baldwin  Co.,  P.  Anderson,  Ag't  and  Treas Lowell. 

Isaac  Farrington „ 

Star  Mills,  Oeorge  Brayton,  Treas Middleboro'. 

S.  U.  Church  &  Brother Middlefield. 

Crane  &  Waters Millbury. 

M.  &  S.  Lapham „ 

Nelson  Walling       „ 

Hampden  Cotton  Manuf'g  Co.,  C.  W.  Holmes,  Ag't    .  Monson. 
Loam  Snow,   Pres.  Star  Mills,  Middleboro',  Mass.  .     .     .  New  Bedford. 
Bukrouoh  &  Baktlett No.  Oxford. 


77 

W.  R  Pauks Palmer. 

John  V.  Barker  &  Jiuuruiiii Pittsfield. 

Peck  &  Kilbourn Pittsfield. 

Pittsfield  Woollen  Co „ 

L.  Pomeroy's  Sons „ 

S.  N.  &  C.  RussELi 

D.  &  H.  Stearns       „ 

Taconic  Mills,  George  Y.  Learned,  Trcas „ 

Salisbury  Mills,  John  Gardner,  Treas.,  Boston     .     .     .  Salisbury. 

C.  Alden Springfield. 

John  L.  King „ 

C.  E.  Parsons „ 

J.  Z.  &  C.  Goodrich  &  Co Stockbridge. 

S.  W.  Scott Uxbridge. 

George  H.  Gilbert  &  Co Ware. 

Charles  A.  Stevens „ 

S.  H.  Sibley Warren. 

L.  M.  Capron  &  Sons Webster. 

Ravine  Manufacturing  Co So.  Wilbraham. 

ScANTic  Manufacturing  Co.,  L.  E.  Sage,  Ag't    .    .    .    „  „ 

Adriatic  Mill,  Granville  M.  Clark,  Treas Worcester. 

H.  H.  Chamberlain  &  Co „ 

Curtis  &  Murdoch „ 

RHODE    ISLAND. 

H.  Sayles  &  Son Pascoag. 

R.  G.  Hazard Peacedale. 

Atlantic  Delaine  Co.,  George  W.  Chapin,  Treas.     .    .  Providence. 

William  G.  Budlong „ 

Chapin  &  Downes „ 

Taft,  Weeden,  &  Co „ 

Wainskuck  Co.,  S.  T.  Olney,  Treas „ 

RowsE  Babcock Westerly. 

Brown  &  Clark „ 

Edward  Harris Woonsocket. 

CONNECTICUT. 

Thomas  Crossley Bridgeport. 

Broad-Brook  Co.,  B.  E.  lluoker,  Treas Broad  Brook. 

A.  C.  Dunham Hartford. 

Hartford  Carpet  Co.,  George  Roberts,  Treas „ 

Home  Woollen  Co.,  H.  Blanchard,  Treas.   .....  „ 

N.  Kingsbury  &  Co «    .    .         m 


78 

Thames  Woollen  Co.,  B.  O.  Hooper,  Ag't Montville. 

Thomas  Lewis Naugatuck. 

New-Britain  Knitting  Co.,  John  B.  Talcott,  Sec.    .    .  New  Britain. 

Union  Mandfacturing  Co Norwalk. 

William  Elting,  Ag't  Elting  Woollen  Co Norwich. 

Yantic  Mills,  by  E.  Winslow  Williams „ 

American  Mill,  J.  J.  Robinson,  Ag't Kockville. 

Florence  Mills,  Oeorge  Kellogg,  jr.,  Ag't „ 

S.  D.  W.  Harris , 

HOCKANUM  Co.,  Oeorge  Maxwell,  Ag't „ 

New-England  Co.,  Allen  Hammond,  Ag't „ 

Rock  Manufacturing  Co.,  Oeorge  Kellogg,  Ag't ...          „ 

Joseph  Selden „ 

E.  H.  Hyde Stafford. 

Mineral-Springs  Manuf'g  Co.,  J.  Converse,  Treas.  .     .  Stafford  Springs. 
Mill-River  Woollen  Manuf'g  Co.,  TJws.  S.  Hall,  Pres.  Stamford. 

Terry  Manuf'g  Co.,  by  Henry  K.  Terry Thomaston, 

East- Windsor  Woollen  Co.,  B.  Sexton,  Pres Warehouse  Pt. 

Glenville  Mills,  A.  D.  Le  Fevre Waterbury. 

Waterbury  Mills,  John  W.  Whiital ,, 

Daleville  Mills,  Ed.  H.  Robinson,  Pres Willington. 

Sequassen  Woollen  Co.,  William  W.  Billings,  Ag't      .  Windsor. 

P.  C.  Allen Windsorville. 

LouNSBURY,  BissELL,  &  Co Winncpauk. 

Norwalk  Mills,  by  Charles  C.  Beits „ 

Daniel  Curtis  &  Co Woodbury. 

NEW     YORK. 

Steam  Woollen  Co.,  8.  Harris,  Ag't Catskill. 

C.  H.  Adams     .    .    .    .    .    .    .    ...    ...    .    .  Cohoes. 

Alden,  Frink,  &  Weston „ 

Joseph  H.  Parsons , 

A.  E.  Stimson,  Treas „ 

Levi  Yanney    ...............  Ephratah. 

Glenham  Co.,  William  M.  Dart,  Ag't Glenham. 

Charles  Stott .  Hudson. 

Saxony  Woollen  Co Little  Falls. 

A.  Van  Sickler Madrid. 

Chester  Moses  &  Co Marcellus. 

P.  S.  Haines Newburg. 

J.  Harrison „ 

Edward  A.  Green New  York. 

Elias  S.  Higgins „ 

Samuel  Lawrence „ 

Little  &  Dana „ 


79* 

L.  J.  Stiastny New  York. 

J.  W.  Stitt 

H.  Starsburg ,, 

H.  D.  Tellkampf „ 

Allen  &  Gibson • Otto. 

A.  L.  Clark  &  Co Philmont. 

S.  W.  Gregory I'lattsburg. 

Elias  Titus  &  Sons .    .  Poughkeepsie. 

H.  Waterbury Nj     .     .  Renssalaerville. 

ScHAGHTicoKE  WooLLEN  MiLLS,  Amos  BHggs,  Pres.    .  Schaghticoke. 

Isaac  R.  Blanvelt Spring  Valley. 

P.  W.  Hart i.    .    .  Stamford. 

Troy  Manufacturing  Co.,  by  Azro  B.  Morgan  >.    .    .  Troy. 

Troy  Woollen  Co.,  by  James  S.  Knoiclton „ 

James  Roy  &  Co .  West  Troy. 

Peter  Cloger,  Ag't  Utica  Steam  Woollen  Co Utica. 

Empire  Woollen  Co.,  A.  J.  Williams 

T.  S.  Faxton i    .    .      „ 

Globe  Woollen  Co.,  Robert  Middleton,  Ag't    ...    .      „ 
Lester  Stone Westfield. 

NEW    JERSEY. 

Jonas  Livermore Blockwoodtown. 

David  Oakes  &  Son Rlootnfield. 

Camden  Woollen  Co.,  S.  B.  Stitt,  Treas.,  Philadelphia  .  Camden. 

S.  &  R.  Duncan Newark. 

Norfolk  &  New  Brunswick  Hosiery  Co.   .    .    .    '.    .  New  Brunswick. 

PENNSYLVANIA. 

Waldo  &  Son Arcade. 

James  Irving ,, ..    .  Chester. 

Fremont  Woollen  Co.,  by  R.  Oarsed Frankford. 

Samuel  Riddle Glen  Riddle. 

John  Covode Lockport  Stat'n. 

A.  Campbell  &  Co i  v,  •    •  Manayunk. 

Edward  Holt „ 

H.  S.  Huidekoper Meadville. 

Samuel  Bancroft Media. 

Edward  H.  Amidon Philadelphia. 

Benjamin  Bullock's  Sons „ 

H.  N.  Bruner „ 

S.  W.  Cattell,  Lincoln  Milts „ 

Campbell  &  Pollock,  Continental  Woollen  Mill    ...  „ 

William  Divine „ 

Thomas  Dolan » 


80 

Samuel  Eccles,  Jr Philndelphia. 

George  P.  Evans „ 

Emanuel  Hey „ 

B.  H.  Jenks „ 

Charles  Spencer „ 

DELAWARE. 
WiixiAM  Dean Newark. 

MARYLAND. 

Wethered,  Brothers,  &  Nephews Baltimore. 

OHIO. 

Glaser  &  Brothers Cincinnati. 

Alton  Pope  &  Sons Cleveland. 

Columbus  Woollen  Manuf'g  Co.,  A .  P.  Stone,  Pres.  .  Columbus. 

INDIANA. 
ScHAEFFER,  RiMROTH,  &  Co Evansville. 

MICHIGAN. 

William  Wallace Battle  Creek. 

P.  S.  Lyman Corunna. 

H.  R.  Gardner Jonesville. 

John  Nicol St.  Clair. 

HONORAEY     MEMBERS. 

Hon.  Henry  S.  Randall Cortland  Vill.,  N.Y. 

Hon.  Justin  S.  Morrill Vermont. 

'H.on.  Isaac  'Newton,  Commissioner  of  Agriculture  .     Washington,  D.C. 


i#*" 


i^ 


M 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


Series  9482 


